Bin Laden and his love of aviation terror

"Matthew S. Whiting" wrote:
...people who simply dismiss others ideas and offer none
of their own are useless.

The babblings of idiots and trolls - and the OP is clearly one or both -
are barely worth the effort of dismissal, let alone counter argument.
--
Dan
C172RG at BFM

Dan,

Thanks, well put.

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

Matthew,

Lots of room, but people who simply dismiss others ideas and offer none
of their own are useless.


You consider THAT an "idea"? You gotta be kidding! You want an idea from
me? How about trying NOT to be the bully of this neighborhood called
world?

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

On Sat, 27 Dec 2003 14:01:18 GMT, Matthew S. Whiting wrote:
Laurence Doering wrote:
On Wed, 24 Dec 2003 20:48:36 -0500, JJ wrote:

It would be pretty much impossible to "obliterate 200 square miles" with the
weapons carried on one Minuteman. Let's assume you want at least 5 psi
overpressure (the minimum needed to cause heavy damage to an American-style
wood frame house.) The blast from a 375 kiloton airburst at optimum altitude
(assuming flat terrain in the target area) will give you 5 psi at a maximum
range of about 3.2 miles, covering an area of only about 32 square miles.
Multiply by three, and you're still more than 100 square miles short of your
goal.

Where do you get your 5 psi figure from? Sounds way high to me. A
30x40' house with even the short side getting hit with a 5 psi
differential would sustain a force of 172,800 lbs (30'x8'x144"/sq.
ftx5psi) or 86.4 tons. I'd be surprised most stud frame houses would
withstand this, and this is ignoring the load on the roof.

My source is the 1962 edition of _The Effects of Nuclear Weapons_, edited
by Samuel Glasstone.

Chapter 5 describes the effects of a 1953 weapons test on several replicas
of houses constructed at the Nevada Test Site. 5 psi overpressure was enough
to collapse a 2-story wood frame house and severely damage a single-story
"rambler"-style wood frame house. 1.7 psi overpressure left the buildings
standing, but blew out doors and windows and caused moderate damage to roofs.

A later 1955 test subjected a wood frame house that had been reinforced
(based on the results of the 1953 test) to 4 psi overpressure. The
structure remained standing with the roof partially collapsed.

I assumed 5 psi as a ballpark figure for the minimum overpressure needed to
substantially damage or destroy almost everything within a certain radius of
ground zero. The 5 psi radius is also close to the maximum radius where
you'd have a reasonable chance of killing or injuring people or livestock
in the open.

You're not going to find many wood frame buildings in the mountains of
Pakistan, though, and you need overpressures more in the neighborhood of
15-25 psi to severely damage or destroy masonry or concrete buildings.
Sure, you could break windows and scare people over a larger area, but the
original poster wanted to "obliterate" 200 square miles with a single
missile.


ljd

Thomas Borchert wrote:
Matthew,


Lots of room, but people who simply dismiss others ideas and offer none
of their own are useless.



You consider THAT an "idea"? You gotta be kidding! You want an idea from
me? How about trying NOT to be the bully of this neighborhood called
world?


I never have been, so that is easy.

Matt

Laurence Doering wrote:
On Sat, 27 Dec 2003 14:01:18 GMT, Matthew S. Whiting wrote:

Laurence Doering wrote:

On Wed, 24 Dec 2003 20:48:36 -0500, JJ wrote:

It would be pretty much impossible to "obliterate 200 square miles" with the
weapons carried on one Minuteman. Let's assume you want at least 5 psi
overpressure (the minimum needed to cause heavy damage to an American-style
wood frame house.) The blast from a 375 kiloton airburst at optimum altitude
(assuming flat terrain in the target area) will give you 5 psi at a maximum
range of about 3.2 miles, covering an area of only about 32 square miles.
Multiply by three, and you're still more than 100 square miles short of your
goal.

Where do you get your 5 psi figure from? Sounds way high to me. A
30x40' house with even the short side getting hit with a 5 psi
differential would sustain a force of 172,800 lbs (30'x8'x144"/sq.
ftx5psi) or 86.4 tons. I'd be surprised most stud frame houses would
withstand this, and this is ignoring the load on the roof.


My source is the 1962 edition of _The Effects of Nuclear Weapons_, edited
by Samuel Glasstone.

Chapter 5 describes the effects of a 1953 weapons test on several replicas
of houses constructed at the Nevada Test Site. 5 psi overpressure was enough
to collapse a 2-story wood frame house and severely damage a single-story
"rambler"-style wood frame house. 1.7 psi overpressure left the buildings
standing, but blew out doors and windows and caused moderate damage to roofs.

A later 1955 test subjected a wood frame house that had been reinforced
(based on the results of the 1953 test) to 4 psi overpressure. The
structure remained standing with the roof partially collapsed.

I assumed 5 psi as a ballpark figure for the minimum overpressure needed to
substantially damage or destroy almost everything within a certain radius of
ground zero. The 5 psi radius is also close to the maximum radius where
you'd have a reasonable chance of killing or injuring people or livestock
in the open.

You're not going to find many wood frame buildings in the mountains of
Pakistan, though, and you need overpressures more in the neighborhood of
15-25 psi to severely damage or destroy masonry or concrete buildings.
Sure, you could break windows and scare people over a larger area, but the
original poster wanted to "obliterate" 200 square miles with a single
missile.

Getting pretty far off topic here, but any idea if this is the response
to a transient shock wave or a steady state pressure difference as would
exist with a hurricane force wind?

Is any of this resistance to air pressure available online?


Matt

"Laurence Doering" wrote in message news:bsjruk$cjsrv$1@ID-|
|
| Damage would be reduced further by the mountainous terrain and the fact
| that most buildings in that part of the world are made of mud brick,
stone,
| or concrete, which would be far more resistant to blast overpressure than
| wood frame construction.

I have to wonder about that, given the horrendous damage caused by the
recent earthquake in Iran. These structures do not seem to me to be
particularly well built.

C J Campbell wrote:

I have to wonder about that, given the horrendous damage caused by the
recent earthquake in Iran. These structures do not seem to me to be
particularly well built.

That's a very different force. In fact, different earthquakes can apply
different forces depending upon a number of factors (ie. the ground
material).

- Andrew

"C J Campbell" wrote in message
...

"Laurence Doering" wrote in message
news:bsjruk$cjsrv$1@ID-|
|
| Damage would be reduced further by the mountainous terrain and the fact
| that most buildings in that part of the world are made of mud brick,
stone,
| or concrete, which would be far more resistant to blast overpressure
than
| wood frame construction.

I have to wonder about that, given the horrendous damage caused by the
recent earthquake in Iran. These structures do not seem to me to be
particularly well built.

The Northridge (CA) earthquake (7.1 ??) Richter killed a "handful" of
people, given the high density of the population. OTOH, _EVERY_ earthquake
in the rest of the world seems to have death tolls in the tens of thousands.

Go figure!

On 12/28/2003 6:50 AM after considerable forethought, Tom Sixkiller wrote:

"C J Campbell" wrote in message
...

"Laurence Doering" wrote in message

news:bsjruk$cjsrv$1@ID-|

|
| Damage would be reduced further by the mountainous terrain and the fact
| that most buildings in that part of the world are made of mud brick,
stone,
| or concrete, which would be far more resistant to blast overpressure

than

| wood frame construction.

I have to wonder about that, given the horrendous damage caused by the
recent earthquake in Iran. These structures do not seem to me to be
particularly well built.


The Northridge (CA) earthquake (7.1 ??) Richter killed a "handful" of
people, given the high density of the population. OTOH, _EVERY_ earthquake
in the rest of the world seems to have death tolls in the tens of thousands.

Go figure!


The Northridge quake was 6.7 and killed 57. The difference is the
building codes which also directly affects the building materials. In
Iran, the majority of the buildings are sun baked bricks/blocks, similar
to adobe with no steel reinforcing. Sun baked adobe comes apart during
strong seismic activity and the weight of the collapsing material
results in loss of life. In So Cal, the majority of the unreinforced
brick buildings that survived the Long Beach EQ in 1933 have at least
been tied together at critical locations to reduce the likelihood of
collapse on the occupants. Northridge proved that the retrofitting of
unreinforced brick buildings work. We have since changed our methods and
materials of construction. If we continued to build to the standards of
ancient civilization, we too would have tens of thousands die as a
result of strong seismic activity.

Steve P (aka eq retro dr)
Engineering buildings when not flying