Steam Bomb

Anthony · 02-06-2014, 03:20 PM

Your basic problem here is that your container will rupture long before you achieve any useful level of damage, unless the containers are very large. Sure, a steam boiler explosion is dangerous, but that's because it's huge.

If we consider a 1m sphere with 10mm thick walls, it has an external volume of 0.52 cubic meters and an internal volume of 0.27 cubic meters; the shell has a volume of 0.25 cubic meters and a weight of just under 1 ton, and it can hold about a quarter ton of water. The shell has a cross-section of 0.28 m^2, the inner cross-section is 0.5m^2. If we assume steel with a yield strength of 400 MPa, that means it will rupture at 224 MPa internal pressure (this assumes no weak spots, which is unlikely) and the total energy contained as pressure is 90 megajoules.

If we took the same design and filled it with TNT, it would detonate with an energy of 1,700 megajoules. Black powder would be maybe half that, and might not produce as efficient an explosion, but would still be vastly more powerful than the steam bomb.

02-06-2014, 03:20 PM	#11
Anthony Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: Berkeley, CA	Re: Steam Bomb Your basic problem here is that your container will rupture long before you achieve any useful level of damage, unless the containers are very large. Sure, a steam boiler explosion is dangerous, but that's because it's huge. If we consider a 1m sphere with 10mm thick walls, it has an external volume of 0.52 cubic meters and an internal volume of 0.27 cubic meters; the shell has a volume of 0.25 cubic meters and a weight of just under 1 ton, and it can hold about a quarter ton of water. The shell has a cross-section of 0.28 m^2, the inner cross-section is 0.5m^2. If we assume steel with a yield strength of 400 MPa, that means it will rupture at 224 MPa internal pressure (this assumes no weak spots, which is unlikely) and the total energy contained as pressure is 90 megajoules. If we took the same design and filled it with TNT, it would detonate with an energy of 1,700 megajoules. Black powder would be maybe half that, and might not produce as efficient an explosion, but would still be vastly more powerful than the steam bomb. __________________ My GURPS site and Blog.