Science > Physics > Car Bombs vs Human Beings (physics, physiology thereof)
| Topic: |
Science > Physics |
| User: |
"Dr. Jai Maharaj" |
| Date: |
25 Jul 2004 11:45:30 PM |
| Object: |
Car Bombs vs Human Beings (physics, physiology thereof) |
Car Bombs vs Human Beings (physics, physiology thereof)
Car Bombs vs. Human Beings
By Ralph Kinney Bennett
Tech Central Station
March 18, 2004
This is a short, unpleasant article. It's just to remind
our readers about the brutal physics of car bombs.
We pointed out in TCS last year (here) the problems these
insidious weapons pose in this war. But in a way we all
become somewhat inured to "another car bombing," like the
one that just occurred at that little hotel in Baghdad.
Indeed, television coverage has a kind of pro forma
discretion about these bombings. We see a series of
images -- flames against the sky, the flashing lights of
the rescue vehicles, the smoking rubble laced with rescue
workers searching for victims, walking wounded, blood and
dust on their faces, making their way from the scene. We
may still watch with a grim fascination but we've seen it
all before.
So perhaps it would be useful to take these things down
to the level of a single human being so that we can
refresh ourselves on just what words like "terror" and
"murder" really mean.
This latest car bomb appears to have been a large one.
There were estimates within hours that it must have been
"a thousand pounds of explosives." And American troops
found evidence that at least one 155 mm artillery shell
may have been part of the bomb.
But car bombs don't have to be large to be devastating.
The type of explosive used (different explosives have
different DVs or detonation velocities), the shape of the
explosive itself and the type of casing in which it is
placed are all factors. The structure of the car used and
the position of the bomb in or on the car also help
determine lethality. The terrible car bombing in Bali
last year reportedly used slightly over 200 pounds of
explosives, but it killed 191 people, injured scores and
destroyed a lot of property.
Methods of mixing various types of explosives are well
known. The web is filled with "cook books" on the
subject. The art of shaping the malleable plastic
explosive charge to focus the blast wave toward the
desired target is another important aspect of what our
military now refer to by the sanitized term IEDs --
improvised explosive devices. Shaping usually involves
hollowing the end of the charge that is "aimed" at the
target building. This inverted cone concentrates the
bomb's shockwave.
Most of us have only seen explosions in movies where
slow-motion photography or the use of low velocity
explosions with lots of smoke and flame create
spectacular, lingering visual effects. Real bombs, using
a high order of explosives, go off in a millisecond flash
doing huge damage in a literal instant. There is little
for the eye to linger upon. One moment everything is
normal. Then a supersonic boom. Then destruction.
In a car bomb the chief effects on life and property are
caused by blast and heat -- from the explosive charge --
and by fragmentation of the bomb casing and the car
itself. Sometimes the car is the bomb casing, with the
plastic explosive material having been tamped into axle
housings, doors or the hollow steel frame of the vehicle.
But let's get back to the people side of this.
The human body's amazing resilience and recuperative
powers are well known. We recover from bullet wounds,
knife wounds, near-drownings, torture, disease and a
thousand traumas brought on by design and by accident.
But a human body seldom comes out alive from the mad
perimeter of a bomb's blast. That deadly perimeter is
determined by the bomb's size and the power of the
explosives inside. For instance, a 2000-pound "general
purpose" military bomb (the kind dropped from aircraft)
contains approximately 1000 pounds of high explosive. The
blast effect perimeter of such a bomb is about 110 feet.
When that car bomb detonated in front of the Mount
Lebanon Hotel on Wednesday night any humans close by were
subjected to a multiple assault, swift, withering and
summary. Those within a few feet of the car were probably
torn to small pieces and those pieces were horribly
barbecued in a literal flash. Others, perhaps in the
hotel itself, were killed by piercing bomb fragments
traveling at thousands of feet per second, or thrown at
tremendous speed against walls and pillars. Others may
have had parts of the hotel structure driven into and
through them.
One of the least understood phenomena of a bomb blast is
overpressure. Everything in the blast perimeter is
subject to a sudden and profound increase in air
pressure. This wave of blast overpressure declines
rapidly the further it travels. A person 10 feet from a
bomb blast will experience nine times the overpressure of
a person 20 feet away. But it gets messy and
unpredictable. A person who happens to be standing
between the bomb and a strong wall is subjected to more
blast effect because solid surfaces reflect the blast
wave.
You, as you read this, are subjected to normal air
pressure of 15 pounds per square inch, depending on how
close you are to sea level. The rapidly expanding gases
of the bomb push the air out of the way generating air
pressures of as much as 700 tons per square inch in the
immediate area. But even on the outer perimeters of the
blast area overpressures can be deadly.
The human body contains two principal air-filled spaces -
- the lungs and the nasal cavity and attached sinuses. A
human subjected to a bomb blast wave instantly has
hundreds and perhaps thousands psi of pressure pushing on
these cavities. A mere 15 psi above normal is considered
the threshold for possible lung injury, so imagine what
happens to those near the epicenter of a bomb blast.
The chest caves in. The lungs inside it are compressed
violently in on themselves -- so violently that the
entire network of pulmonary vessels connecting them to
the heart and the rest of the body are sheared off.
When the instant of blast overpressure passes, the lungs
suddenly re-expand, like a crushed rubber ball rebounding
in the hand of a strong man. But now they are filled with
a huge volume of blood, blood that should be flowing to
the heart and other parts of the body.
Blood that would normally return to the heart through the
left ventrical has now overwhelmed the lungs. No blood in
the left ventrical equals no blood in the heart equals no
pulmonary output to the body. Blood pressure -- zero. The
body is instantly starved.
Up above, in the skull, at the same instant, the
overpressure works in another way. The nasal and sinus
cavities implode. That part of the skull called the
cribiform plate ruptures, snaps and may be thrust upward
into the base of the brain.
Kind of academic, isn't it? You can die so many ways in
the space of a few seconds in a bomb blast.
We in the general public don't hear about these things.
Doctors treating those who survived the initial blast use
terms we never hear to cover the bloody mayhem being
wheeled into them -- pulmonary barotraumas, disseminated
intravascular coagulation, lipoxygenation. The patient is
probably covered with bruises and scars and blood, but
much of the life threatening damage is hidden from view.
Even in a big, modern American hospital doctors and
nurses would be quickly overwhelmed. Imagine the
situation in Iraq.
There will be more car bombs. When you read about them,
think for a moment about those victims who are so quickly
reduced to mere statistics. These were human beings like
you, suddenly subjected to a terrible physical force that
is difficult to imagine. Terrorism has been called "the
warfare of the weak," and its victims are almost always
the weak, the innocent, those simply trying to live their
lives -- in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Ralph Kinney Bennett recently wrote for TCS about
"Terror's Grand Design."
http://www.techcentralstation.com/031804I.html
Posted by quidnunc
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Not only that, it doesn't take that large of a vehicle.
I watched a Homeland security video on explosives and
they easily got about 500lbs of ANFO (if I remember
correctly) into a car about the size of a Ford Taurus.
Posted by Johnny Gage
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Fascinating info for the pyros among us.
Posted by IronJack
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I wonder if the victims actually experience any kind of
pain in that few seconds after the bomb explodes. I sure
hope not.
Posted by Arpege92
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Many in this forum could comment on how easy it is to
secure the necessary materials and detonators necessary
to build a very large and very effective car or truck
bomb...
It is NOT necessary to commit suicide or "ride the bomb"
to detonation.... Everyday devices are available that
would allow one to detonate from quite a distance --- at
the appropriate time..
It would not be wise to discuss in this forum..
Suffice to say - this country would be the world's most
difficult to occupy and rule against the wishes of
millions of previously trained and currently armed
veterans.
I think it is for this reason -- that most of our enemies
recognize that to beat us -- they must destroy us.
Semper Fi
Posted by river rat
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I wonder if the victims actually experience any kind of
pain in that few seconds after the bomb explodes. I sure
hope not.
Afraid so. Sometimes, at least.
View image of newspaper front page here:
http://www.azcentral.com/news/specials/bolles/gifs/paper.jpg
Posted by archy
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Bastards. Put em all against a wall and shoot em. At
least.
Posted by Travis McGee
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
most of our enemies recognize that to beat us -- they
must destroy us.
That's why we need to "extinct" them first.
Posted by Travis McGee
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
End of forwarded messages
Jai Maharaj
http://www.mantra.com/jai
Om Shanti
Hindu Holocaust Museum
http://www.mantra.com/holocaust
Hindu life, principles, spirituality and philosophy
http://www.hindu.org
http://www.hindunet.org
The truth about Islam and Muslims
http://www.flex.com/~jai/satyamevajayate
The terrorist mission of Jesus stated in the Christian bible:
"Think not that I am come to send peace on earth:
I came not so send peace, but a sword.
"For I am come to set a man at variance against his
father, and the daughter against her mother, and the
daughter in law against her mother in law.
"And a man's foes shall be they of his own
household.
- Matthew 10:34-36.
o Not for commercial use. Solely to be fairly used for the
educational purposes of research and open discussion. The contents of
this post may not have been authored by, and do not necessarily represent
the opinion of the poster. The contents are protected by copyright law
and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
o If you send private e-mail to me, it will likely not be read,
considered or answered if it does not contain your full legal name,
current e-mail and postal addresses, and live-voice telephone number.
o Posted for information and discussion. Views expressed by others
are not necessarily those of the poster.
.
|
|
| User: "Uncle Al" |
|
| Title: Re: Car Bombs vs Human Beings (physics, physiology thereof) |
26 Jul 2004 08:31:03 AM |
|
|
"Dr. Jai Maharaj" wrote:
Car Bombs vs Human Beings (physics, physiology thereof)
[snip unlicensed use]
http://www.geocities.com/drjosemariachi/jay_faq.html
Troll FAQ for Jai Maharaj (Hindi for "cracked athletic cup")
His real name is "Jay Stevens" and he runs a front called
"Mantra Corporation."
--
Uncle Al
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/
(Toxic URL! Unsafe for children and most mammals)
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/qz.pdf
.
|
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|
| User: "Dr. Jai Maharaj" |
|
| Title: Re: Car Bombs vs Human Beings (physics, physiology thereof) |
26 Jul 2004 02:15:49 PM |
|
|
Car Bombs vs Human Beings (physics, physiology thereof)
Car Bombs vs. Human Beings
By Ralph Kinney Bennett
Tech Central Station
March 18, 2004
This is a short, unpleasant article. It's just to remind
our readers about the brutal physics of car bombs.
We pointed out in TCS last year (here) the problems these
insidious weapons pose in this war. But in a way we all
become somewhat inured to "another car bombing," like the
one that just occurred at that little hotel in Baghdad.
Indeed, television coverage has a kind of pro forma
discretion about these bombings. We see a series of
images -- flames against the sky, the flashing lights of
the rescue vehicles, the smoking rubble laced with rescue
workers searching for victims, walking wounded, blood and
dust on their faces, making their way from the scene. We
may still watch with a grim fascination but we've seen it
all before.
So perhaps it would be useful to take these things down
to the level of a single human being so that we can
refresh ourselves on just what words like "terror" and
"murder" really mean.
This latest car bomb appears to have been a large one.
There were estimates within hours that it must have been
"a thousand pounds of explosives." And American troops
found evidence that at least one 155 mm artillery shell
may have been part of the bomb.
But car bombs don't have to be large to be devastating.
The type of explosive used (different explosives have
different DVs or detonation velocities), the shape of the
explosive itself and the type of casing in which it is
placed are all factors. The structure of the car used and
the position of the bomb in or on the car also help
determine lethality. The terrible car bombing in Bali
last year reportedly used slightly over 200 pounds of
explosives, but it killed 191 people, injured scores and
destroyed a lot of property.
Methods of mixing various types of explosives are well
known. The web is filled with "cook books" on the
subject. The art of shaping the malleable plastic
explosive charge to focus the blast wave toward the
desired target is another important aspect of what our
military now refer to by the sanitized term IEDs --
improvised explosive devices. Shaping usually involves
hollowing the end of the charge that is "aimed" at the
target building. This inverted cone concentrates the
bomb's shockwave.
Most of us have only seen explosions in movies where
slow-motion photography or the use of low velocity
explosions with lots of smoke and flame create
spectacular, lingering visual effects. Real bombs, using
a high order of explosives, go off in a millisecond flash
doing huge damage in a literal instant. There is little
for the eye to linger upon. One moment everything is
normal. Then a supersonic boom. Then destruction.
In a car bomb the chief effects on life and property are
caused by blast and heat -- from the explosive charge --
and by fragmentation of the bomb casing and the car
itself. Sometimes the car is the bomb casing, with the
plastic explosive material having been tamped into axle
housings, doors or the hollow steel frame of the vehicle.
But let's get back to the people side of this.
The human body's amazing resilience and recuperative
powers are well known. We recover from bullet wounds,
knife wounds, near-drownings, torture, disease and a
thousand traumas brought on by design and by accident.
But a human body seldom comes out alive from the mad
perimeter of a bomb's blast. That deadly perimeter is
determined by the bomb's size and the power of the
explosives inside. For instance, a 2000-pound "general
purpose" military bomb (the kind dropped from aircraft)
contains approximately 1000 pounds of high explosive. The
blast effect perimeter of such a bomb is about 110 feet.
When that car bomb detonated in front of the Mount
Lebanon Hotel on Wednesday night any humans close by were
subjected to a multiple assault, swift, withering and
summary. Those within a few feet of the car were probably
torn to small pieces and those pieces were horribly
barbecued in a literal flash. Others, perhaps in the
hotel itself, were killed by piercing bomb fragments
traveling at thousands of feet per second, or thrown at
tremendous speed against walls and pillars. Others may
have had parts of the hotel structure driven into and
through them.
One of the least understood phenomena of a bomb blast is
overpressure. Everything in the blast perimeter is
subject to a sudden and profound increase in air
pressure. This wave of blast overpressure declines
rapidly the further it travels. A person 10 feet from a
bomb blast will experience nine times the overpressure of
a person 20 feet away. But it gets messy and
unpredictable. A person who happens to be standing
between the bomb and a strong wall is subjected to more
blast effect because solid surfaces reflect the blast
wave.
You, as you read this, are subjected to normal air
pressure of 15 pounds per square inch, depending on how
close you are to sea level. The rapidly expanding gases
of the bomb push the air out of the way generating air
pressures of as much as 700 tons per square inch in the
immediate area. But even on the outer perimeters of the
blast area overpressures can be deadly.
The human body contains two principal air-filled spaces -
- the lungs and the nasal cavity and attached sinuses. A
human subjected to a bomb blast wave instantly has
hundreds and perhaps thousands psi of pressure pushing on
these cavities. A mere 15 psi above normal is considered
the threshold for possible lung injury, so imagine what
happens to those near the epicenter of a bomb blast.
The chest caves in. The lungs inside it are compressed
violently in on themselves -- so violently that the
entire network of pulmonary vessels connecting them to
the heart and the rest of the body are sheared off.
When the instant of blast overpressure passes, the lungs
suddenly re-expand, like a crushed rubber ball rebounding
in the hand of a strong man. But now they are filled with
a huge volume of blood, blood that should be flowing to
the heart and other parts of the body.
Blood that would normally return to the heart through the
left ventrical has now overwhelmed the lungs. No blood in
the left ventrical equals no blood in the heart equals no
pulmonary output to the body. Blood pressure -- zero. The
body is instantly starved.
Up above, in the skull, at the same instant, the
overpressure works in another way. The nasal and sinus
cavities implode. That part of the skull called the
cribiform plate ruptures, snaps and may be thrust upward
into the base of the brain.
Kind of academic, isn't it? You can die so many ways in
the space of a few seconds in a bomb blast.
We in the general public don't hear about these things.
Doctors treating those who survived the initial blast use
terms we never hear to cover the bloody mayhem being
wheeled into them -- pulmonary barotraumas, disseminated
intravascular coagulation, lipoxygenation. The patient is
probably covered with bruises and scars and blood, but
much of the life threatening damage is hidden from view.
Even in a big, modern American hospital doctors and
nurses would be quickly overwhelmed. Imagine the
situation in Iraq.
There will be more car bombs. When you read about them,
think for a moment about those victims who are so quickly
reduced to mere statistics. These were human beings like
you, suddenly subjected to a terrible physical force that
is difficult to imagine. Terrorism has been called "the
warfare of the weak," and its victims are almost always
the weak, the innocent, those simply trying to live their
lives -- in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Ralph Kinney Bennett recently wrote for TCS about
"Terror's Grand Design."
http://www.techcentralstation.com/031804I.html
Posted by quidnunc
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Not only that, it doesn't take that large of a vehicle.
I watched a Homeland security video on explosives and
they easily got about 500lbs of ANFO (if I remember
correctly) into a car about the size of a Ford Taurus.
Posted by Johnny Gage
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Fascinating info for the pyros among us.
Posted by IronJack
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I wonder if the victims actually experience any kind of
pain in that few seconds after the bomb explodes. I sure
hope not.
Posted by Arpege92
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Many in this forum could comment on how easy it is to
secure the necessary materials and detonators necessary
to build a very large and very effective car or truck
bomb...
It is NOT necessary to commit suicide or "ride the bomb"
to detonation.... Everyday devices are available that
would allow one to detonate from quite a distance --- at
the appropriate time..
It would not be wise to discuss in this forum..
Suffice to say - this country would be the world's most
difficult to occupy and rule against the wishes of
millions of previously trained and currently armed
veterans.
I think it is for this reason -- that most of our enemies
recognize that to beat us -- they must destroy us.
Semper Fi
Posted by river rat
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I wonder if the victims actually experience any kind of
pain in that few seconds after the bomb explodes. I sure
hope not.
Afraid so. Sometimes, at least.
View image of newspaper front page here:
http://www.azcentral.com/news/specials/bolles/gifs/paper.jpg
Posted by archy
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Bastards. Put em all against a wall and shoot em. At
least.
Posted by Travis McGee
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
most of our enemies recognize that to beat us -- they
must destroy us.
That's why we need to "extinct" them first.
Posted by Travis McGee
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
End of forwarded messages
Jai Maharaj
http://www.mantra.com/jai
Om Shanti
Hindu Holocaust Museum
http://www.mantra.com/holocaust
Hindu life, principles, spirituality and philosophy
http://www.hindu.org
http://www.hindunet.org
The truth about Islam and Muslims
http://www.flex.com/~jai/satyamevajayate
The terrorist mission of Jesus stated in the Christian bible:
"Think not that I am come to send peace on earth:
I came not so send peace, but a sword.
"For I am come to set a man at variance against his
father, and the daughter against her mother, and the
daughter in law against her mother in law.
"And a man's foes shall be they of his own
household.
- Matthew 10:34-36.
o Not for commercial use. Solely to be fairly used for the
educational purposes of research and open discussion. The contents of
this post may not have been authored by, and do not necessarily represent
the opinion of the poster. The contents are protected by copyright law
and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
o If you send private e-mail to me, it will likely not be read,
considered or answered if it does not contain your full legal name,
current e-mail and postal addresses, and live-voice telephone number.
o Posted for information and discussion. Views expressed by others
are not necessarily those of the poster.
.
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