Live data from Hacker News

Order of magnitude estimate of Beirut explosion at 3 kilotons of TNT

twitter.com

251–255 of 255 posts

Re: Order of magnitude estimate of Beirut explosion at 3 kilotons of TNT

#251

This seems unlikely. Officially, they had 2750 tones of ammonium nitrate on that dock. Even if it were properly mixed with fuel oil to make ANFO, that would give you 2200 tones of tnt equivalent. It is quite unlikely that it was mixed to the perfect proportions, so we’d expect actual yield to be below theoretical max So unless if something else was involved (or the official amount of ammonium nitrate was wrong) I wou…

There are plenty of petroleum distillates in a dockyard. Diesel, bunker fuel, kerosene, gasoline....not to mention other flammable hydrocarbons and powders. You're assuming an 80% ratio ANFO/TNT but you're neglecting the mass of the FO, as well as the possibility of other oxidizers being stored near the blast site. I guess you could make some assumptions about the fuel based on detonation velocity as observed on vide…

Properly mixed ANFO doesn't contain a huge amount of FO; ideally it's supposed to be 6% by mass. Good enough for a quick HN estimate, although I'd hope an actual after action report does better. A better calculation is that 2750 tonnes of AN would yield 2864 tonnes of ANFO, which is 2,291 tonnes of TNT equivalent.

However, we know that the explosion wasn't stoichiometrically perfect, because of the brown NO2 clouds that were hanging over Beirut. Properly mixed ANFO should release only H2O, CO2, and N2. So we know that there was some level of explosive power that wasn't fully consumed. This is why I put the ANFO yield as the absolute theoretical max, I think in reality the actual yield was much much lower.

Some other people have speculated that the fireworks like mini explosions between the first and second big explosions was actually ammonium nitrate decomposing, which would imply that this was a pure ammonium nitrate explosion and not one accelerated by some sort of oil or other fuel. If that's true, various manufacturers give the AN to TNT equivalent of poorly handled AN at 15-40% of TNT, giving a yield somewhere in the 412-1,100 tonne range.

Re: Order of magnitude estimate of Beirut explosion at 3 kilotons of TNT

#252

Lebanon has its share of enemies, internal and external. All it would take is a mavic inspire drone to fly over and drop the initial explosive. Trump said "it looks like a terrible attack" at his news conference. Which is probably what his intelligence officers/advisors speculated when they briefed him.

> Which is probably what his intelligence officers/advisors speculated when they briefed him because Trump would never go off-script and speculate on his own?..

That's possible for sure. But why do you assume that Trump made it up?

Have you ever gone to hairdresser, asked for a haircut, and the hairdresser only took one snip, and asked for money?

No, it doesn't happen. You know why, because people tend to justify their jobs.

I'm betting at least one of his Intel officers, would be suspicious of almost nuclear level yield blast.

Re: Order of magnitude estimate of Beirut explosion at 3 kilotons of TNT

#253
post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

High explosives burn too fast for regular flames and suck the oxygen out for subsequent burning. Though you can definitely see fire in the first few frames. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Adair got famous for putting out oil well fires with high explosives. Explosives on burn that fast due to their chemical structure not because of free oxygen in the atmosphere. So if you see a fireball, the explosion has slowed…

But I think the guy did that, it just took him a couple of seconds to register. Remember, you knew it was an explosion before watching the video. I remember I got the same reaction, but I've watched the video multiple times, I think the first time I would have been as slow as the guy filming.

I didn't say I would have gone any faster.

My point was that I was actually in my head imagining dropping the phone and running away while I watched.

I also didn't know it was going to be that big of an explosion.

I've got plenty of memories of just not moving fast enough in an bad situation.

Re: Order of magnitude estimate of Beirut explosion at 3 kilotons of TNT

#254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of petroleum distillates in a dockyard. Diesel, bunker fuel, kerosene, gasoline....not to mention other flammable hydrocarbons and powders. You're assuming an 80% ratio ANFO/TNT but you're neglecting the mass of the FO, as well as the possibility of other oxidizers being stored near the blast site. I guess you could make some assumptions about the fuel based on detonation velocity as observed on vide…

Properly mixed ANFO doesn't contain a huge amount of FO; ideally it's supposed to be 6% by mass. Good enough for a quick HN estimate, although I'd hope an actual after action report does better. A better calculation is that 2750 tonnes of AN would yield 2864 tonnes of ANFO, which is 2,291 tonnes of TNT equivalent. However, we know that the explosion wasn't stoichiometrically perfect, because of the brown NO2 clouds t…

> ideally it's supposed to be 6% by mass. Correct, but when you're talking about a difference of 1kt on a 3kt estimate, 6% is non-negligible IMO.

> we know that there was some level of explosive power that wasn't fully consumed.

Agreed, if there were no other oxidizers nearby then it's clear based on the reddish brown color of the smoke cloud that the AN was not consumed.

Re: Order of magnitude estimate of Beirut explosion at 3 kilotons of TNT

#255
post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Tianjin_explosions notes "336 tons TNT equivalent."

A single m87 thermonuclear warhead has a detonation yeild of 300 tons of tnt, and a single ICBM can carry up to 10 of those. Absolutely terrifying.

Yes, utterly horrifying on those points alone, to say nothing of the added destruction that air blast and supersonic shockwaves will do, even before you get to radiation.
Post reply on HN