A question about chemical explosives

[John Jones]

Do things like dynamite, TNT, PETN, etc work in outer space at non-contact distances?

If this sounds like a stupid question, please remember that there are no stupid questions, just stupid people :^D

[~enigma~]

Do things like dynamite, TNT, PETN, etc work in outer space at non-contact distances?

If this sounds like a stupid question, please remember that there are no stupid questions, just stupid people :^D
you planning to blow up a few satellites?

[Perpetual Student]

Do things like dynamite, TNT, PETN, etc work in outer space at non-contact distances?

If this sounds like a stupid question, please remember that there are no stupid questions, just stupid people :^D

If they require atmospheric oxygen, obviously they will not function.

[Starthinker]

Apart from needing oxygen, there would be no medium for a compression wave to travel through. If, for instance, you somehow blew up a stick of tnt in a vacuum you'd get hit with specks of the actual device but you wouldn't feel a compression wave, which is what does most of the damage here on earth. The denser the medium the better the compression wave, hence the mythbusters were able to blow the door off a safe filled with water but had it been a vacuum it would have just been dirty inside.

[casebro]

welllll, distance would have a lot to do with it. Explosives release a LOT of gas. The speed of release makes a shock wave that travels through the air. No air, no shock wave. But don't ignore the big blast of gas. Think of it like a rocket engine, the gas has thrust...

Perhaps a two stage explosive would be more efficient? First blast makes a cloud of gas. The second stage's shock wave would then have a medium to travel through, and may still have lots of juice once it hits the target. Perhaps a mechanism to direct the blasts would help transfer the energy? Like firing blank shells from a cannon?

There are physics laws that would tell us about the speed of the expansion of the first blast of gasses. I THINK gas expands at the speed of sound.... ummm.. what IS the speed of sound at zero atmospheres?... but the blast starts out at mega-pressures, or it wouldn't be a blast.... some are as dense a water...

So the whole prospect is "How fast does gas expand in space?"

[Bikewer]

High explosives do not need atmospheric oxygen. The speed of propagation varies with the explosive, but most "high" explosives run in the 16,000 to 20,000 feet per second range.

Blast effect in a vacuum would be interesting to study. In atmosphere, the pressure wave of the expanding gases does use the surrounding air....But at the same time the air acts as a damper.
I seem to recall that the propagation of the wave is along inverse-square parameters...

In vacuum, the not-inconsiderable amount of gases would still furnish a considerable pressure wave, but you'd think the damage area would be smaller....

[mhaze]

After WWII, the US got a LOT of V2 rockets and equipment from Germany. One thing that was done to enable recovery of instrument packages was to blow the nose of the rocket near apogee (EG in space).

So they tied bundles of explosives to the near nose spars. It didn't work. They tied more. And more. Finally, it worked, and the rockets started fluttering down instead of coming in supersonic.

IIRC it took some 20lbs to part a few aluminum beams. Basically, let's say you could hacksaw through the same beams in a few minutes.

This was all before the development of explosive bolts.