Beirut mystery explosion

[Steveml63]

Didn’t realise we had so many explosive’s experts on here.

You might be surpised!
i studied chemistry and always had a fascination in making big bangs!
Nearly blew up the family home aged 10 with a homemade device!
Worked in a laboratory for 4 years as a first job and two of my work colleagues were also pyromaniacs - we had some fun during our lunch hours!

 

[Deleted member 113659]

Didn’t realise we had so many Google experts on here.

FTFY

 

[Darrell]

FTFY

That’s about the size of it.

 

[markjay]

Didn’t realise we had so many explosive’s experts on here.

You'd be surprised... some of us are. In a previous life... seriously.

 

[mattc]

You might be surpised!
i studied chemistry and always had a fascination in making big bangs!
Nearly blew up the family home aged 10 with a homemade device!
Worked in a laboratory for 4 years as a first job and two of my work colleagues were also pyromaniacs - we had some fun during our lunch hours!

Funny you should say that about lunch hours. When I worked in the ammo factory one of the chemists would occasionally ring me up and say they were "testing" on the loading field if I wanted to come over for 1pm. The standard trick was to see how high a WWII tin hat could be propelled. It was considered very poor form to rupture the hat but a slight rearrangement of its shape was acceptable. Somewhere in the house I have an old american pamphlet on how to make bombs from household chemicals.

 

[Darrell]

We used to make acetylene bombs on site using a some oxygen, acetylene, a large Ribena carton and some paper soaked in patination oil.

Health & Safety?? Nah.

 

[Deleted member 6183]

FTFY

Black belt in Google on here.

 

[grober]

West Fertilizer Company explosion - Wikipedia
Such events not confined to the Middle East. An enquiry found it to be the result of a criminal act by person/s unspecified -- which is convenient for those who would normally be "the usual suspects" = the plant operator

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While its understandable that people - victims /relatives want someone to be held responsible in major disasters like this its often the result of the omissions / failures by many individuals/ regulatory bodies in a sort of weird "butterfly effect" form of causality and very difficult to pin down specific individuals to face criminal proceedings Remember Buncefield?

Buncefield fire - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[E55BOF]

Didn’t realise we had so many explosive’s experts on here.

Get me the ingredients, and I could knock you up a very basic pipe bomb tomorrow.

 

[Deleted member 126251]

Get me the ingredients, and I could knock you up a very basic pipe bomb tomorrow.

The ingredients (as in that explosion) are available over the counter and we mixed it with something else also available everywhere ......we often did it as kids - however it is very unstable and dangerous.

We routinely made our own gunpowder. The loudest bang I ever made involved aluminium powder. The pharmacy used to sell all the ingredients for gunpowder as well as glycerine, iodine crystals etc and even swimming pool chemicals correctly combined with something else go boom.......... I'm surprised we grew up with all our body parts intact.

 

[fabes]

You'd be surprised... some of us are. In a previous life... seriously.

Yup, you might also be surprised what you are shown, told (get to play with) and learn, working for a defence contractor.......

Tianjin was on a different scale though; I had stuff there so was involved in the insurance claim that followed.
Looks like in both cases, lax standards and management were culpable

 

[E55BOF]

"The ingredients (as in that explosion) are available over the counter (mixed with something else also available everywhere ) ......we often did it as kids - however it is very unstable and dangerous.

Illegitimi non carborundum"

Yes, I know; I, too, haven't made one since I was a kid, and that was over fifty years ago. It was just a bit of fun way back then. Happy days...

 

[markjay]

Talking about everyday stuff that explodes... grain silos... here's a recent example: www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-53279080

 

[whitenemesis]

Pretty much any combustible material, finely divided or powdered and then aerosolised will exploded when exposed to an ignition source.
Flour in mills a prime example.

 

[Deleted member 149005]

I remember making a small band with a tin of custard powder, bicarbonate of soda and something else...

My Action Man was KIA

 

[E55BOF]

I remember making a small band with a tin of custard powder, bicarbonate of soda and something else...My Action Man was KIA

He died with music playing, then.

 

[Deleted member 149005]

He died with music playing, then.

damn auto correct...BANG...

 

[BTB 500]

Yes, I know; I, too, haven't made one since I was a kid, and that was over fifty years ago. It was just a bit of fun way back then. Happy days...

Same here, I did all sorts of stuff as a kid that would have the anti-terrorist squad breaking down your front door in 5 minutes flat nowadays.

 

[Deleted member 126251]

"The ingredients (as in that explosion) are available over the counter (mixed with something else also available everywhere ) ......we often did it as kids - however it is very unstable and dangerous.

Illegitimi non carborundum"

Yes, I know; I, too, haven't made one since I was a kid, and that was over fifty years ago. It was just a bit of fun way back then. Happy days...

Then there was the kid at my school........our boarding house was not far from a disused gold mine....he found an explosive there and set it off on the kopje at the back of the hostel. Made the newspapers.

 

[190]

Somebody will probably calculate the equivalent properly - but it's probable only a small % of the stored material actually detonated - 'just' 1% or 27 tonnes would be around 10 tonnes TNT equivalent. That is a very very devastating explosion in a built up environment.

I think the exact TNT equivalent percentage is nether here not there compared to estimates of the total explosive force being orders of magnitude too low. If the airport really was damaged 6 miles away and the blast was even felt 150 miles away in Cyprus, then we are taking in excess of a 1 kiloton explosion which suggests all or most of the 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate went up and maybe other things besides.