🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Dec25.134459.7728@ke4zv.uucp> gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman) writes:
>In article <1992Dec22.214616.27043@fcom.cc.utah.edu> bbarkey@lark.utah.edu (Brian Barkey) writes:
>>	And gasoline isn't explosive? 
>>	I may be mistaken but any power source capable of propelling
>>	a ton or more at speeds greater than 50 mph for hundreds of 
>>	miles must have a significant amount of energy in it. 
>>
>>	Brian Barkey	
>
>You don't understand. The gasoline *does* contain the same amount of
>energy as the flywheel, that's the whole point of the exercise. 

Harvesting a minor nit:  It is the combined masses of gasoline AND 
oxigen that contain the same energy.  The gasoline alone is rather
lacking in available energy ...  (This just makes your point more
strongly, so you may have been indulging in a bit of understatement...)

>But liquid gasoline can't explode. Only gasoline vapor properly mixed
>with oxygen, 14:1 air/fuel ratio, can explode. When it's arranged
>thusly it's called a FAE bomb. When the US dropped one during Desert
>Storm, British troops radioed their headquarters and reported that
>the "bloody yanks" were using nukes on the Iraqis. 

The research effort that resulted in the FAE bomb was aimed at 
duplicating some of the heat/blast effects of a nuke, but on a 
small scale, so this isn't too surprising (unless you are on the
recieving end of one !! ;-)

>Now with the flywheel failure, all the energy is released at once.
>The only difference between a fire and an explosion is the *rate*
>at which it occurs. This time the timescale is microseconds. You
>wind up with an explosion that is about equivalent to 200 pounds
>of dynamite. 

This is, IMHO, the most telling example.  Energy released equivalent
to 200 lbs of dynamite on a similar time scale could have a very 
large quantity absorbed in {phase change, chemical bonds breaking, etc.}
and still have enough left to be disasterous!  Heck, take 99% of it
away and you still have 2 lbs of dynamite.  The car is history at
this point ...  (I'd love to see someone postulate what chemical/physical
processes are going to happen in a flywheel failure that are going
to be MORE THAN 99% efficient at converting kinetic energy to non-thermal
forms ...)

-- 

E. Michael Smith  ems@apple.COM

'Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it.  Boldness has
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