Various "experts", actually spin doctors, have stepped up to the plate to dispense rubbish and nonsense pseudoscience in an attempt to back up the absurd claims at The Oklahoma City bombing. The photographs showed pillars still sheathed in sheetrock while pillars beyond them were severed. Explosives don't work that way.
Photographs of the street in front of the building showed rubble across the street, on the other side of the truck. Explosives don't work that way. Ferrocrete failure requires stress in excess of the reinforcing steel. Since the force is carried by a highly compressible substance, air, extreme velocity is needed. The rate of dissipation in air is too high for anything less. Explosives work that way. If ANFO is contained, such as in a bore hole, the large quantity of gas can heave, or push, a large mass--such as a hillside. Uncontained its destructive power is minimal as the rate of gas production is too low to compensate for the high compressibility of the transfer media (air). ANFO would not be useful in front of a building except to break windows. General Benjamin Partin (Parton?spelling?)USAF retired issued a report on this. Conveniently ignored of course. His qualifications include being the inventor of the continuous rod warhead. My qualifications include a better than average understanding of the physics involved. I am a retired hardness and susceptibility engineer so my understanding of the physics of shockwaves extends through nuclear as well as chemical devices. Also missing at Oklahoma was the characteristic ANFO cloud. A truck full would have filled the street with a dense cloud. You don't stand downwind of ANFO. Ask any blaster. Rudely inferring I am a country rube in the hills of Montana in a "tar paper shack" is uncalled for. Defend your position with facts and logic, not coarse innuendo. I know far better what I speak of than you obviously do. Slow long pressure wave shattering ferrocrete. LOL Basically I live in the equivalent of a park full of wild animals that frequent my yard and deck. Even deer have climbed the stairs as well as bear. It is odd to look out the window and have a deer looking at you. Very curious animals. I see stars at night, not lights from streetlamps and houses. I smell evergreens, not raw sewage and diesel exhaust like many urban dwellers. I like it out here very much, thankyou. Kirk -----Original Message----- From: Alan S. Petrillo [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, September 15, 2001 11:45 PM To: biofuel Subject: [biofuel] RE: KOH <- potassium hydroxide, off-topic anyway "kirk" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Her comment re Oklahoma bombing was--"If you think anfo is capable of > cutting steel reinforced concrete you probably also believe in Santa Claus > and the Easter Bunny". I agree with her assessment. ANFO does not have the > brisance needed for ferrocrete. The Marine barracks bombing was done with > real explosive and look at what the signature was. Okla had pillar charges. > No other way of doing it. The danger in ANFO is not from shattering brissance, but rather from overpressure. Some of the things I've seen and read about ANFO have said that for terrorist attacks on buildings it might actually be _more_ dangerous than higher order explosives because of its more sustained pressure wave. The shockwaves generated by the higher order explosives are more easily reflected from building structures, whereas the longer lived pressure wave from ANFO doesn't reflect as easily and tends to push structures over. In an interview Stacey Loizeaux of Controlled Demolitions said there was only one intact column left in the Murragh building in Oklahoma City after it was blown up, so apparently ANFO can be pretty effective against concrete structures. In the end I suppose it's like the difference between getting punched in the face by Mike Tyson versus getting body slammed by Warren Sapp. Tyson's punch is penetrating and shattering, but Sapp's body slam will leave you mashed into a depression in the turf. Neither one is likely to leave you in very good condition afterward. As far as ANFO's connection to biofuels goes, I suppose if you washed enough ammonium nitrate out of a _large_ quantity of chicken feces you could mix it with biodiesel and call it BANFO. <humor> When you aren't using it for blowing up oil companies you could burn it to cook your food while you're living in your tarpaper shack in the Montana wilderness. Ecoterrorism indeed. ;-) </humor> Alan Petrillo -- He who sows the wind shall reap the whirlwind. Remember the World Trade Center. Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Please do NOT send "unsubscribe" messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ --- Incoming mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.276 / Virus Database: 145 - Release Date: 9/3/2001 ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> FREE COLLEGE MONEY CLICK HERE to search 600,000 scholarships! http://us.click.yahoo.com/47cccB/4m7CAA/ySSFAA/FGYolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Please do NOT send "unsubscribe" messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/