I was just reading about the meteor that hit Greenland the other day; it exploded with 2.1 kilotons of force.
Nobody gave a simple explanation for what 2.1 kilotons of force means, only that a kiloton is the equivalent of a thousand tons. I don’t know how big an explosion 2100 tons of TNT produces; I only know I want to be far away from it.
Since Google failed to produce an answer I’m turning to the folks at Straight Dope.
One kiloton of TNT is sitting on the ground in front of me. What is the minimum safe distance?
And, as they say on the internet, please explain like I’m five.
Thread title changed from “I’m starting to think no one knows the answer to this question” to “How big is a one kiloton explosion?” Please use descriptive thread titles.
A kiloton is a perfectly valid metric unit of mass. But it’s most often used as a shorthand for “kiloton of TNT equivalent”, which is a unit of energy.
Anecdote: We were in Iraq at Objective Arlington (Iraqi Army Depot) destroying unsafe munitions. Each day (6/7 with Friday a religious observance for the locals) we would detonate 4 pits with a maximum of 20,000 lbs. NEW per pit. The detonations were not simultaneous but had enough delay so the shock fronts would not merge and reinforce each other. The pits had fragmenting munitions which is far more complicated if you were to read page 9 above. We started out 3.4 miles back:D to observe the blasts. One day with the majority of munitions being 155mm HE projectiles (nasty fragments from ogive and baseplate), some fragments were noted passing over our heads. :eek: We adjusted back to 4.7 miles; still a good show.
Thank You! And Tim just above, for pointing out that “kiloton” the way the OP used it, is a unit of energy, not force. Reading phrases like, “a kiloton of force,” makes my teeth itch.
Even if it is technically correct in an English unit system as pounds are units of force.
One kiloton of TNT is stated to have the chemical energy of 4.184 x 10^12 joules.
‘Ouch’ when reading smithsb’s story of having shrapnel and debris still sailing over his head, 3 and a half miles away from the det. I literally can’t imagine, unless I’m seeing something like vulcanology photos from watching something like St. Helens blow up.
What this reminds me of is the electron-volt. This is a unit of energy used by particle physicists. To note is that if one multiplies the unit by a convenient factor, say a billion, and uses universal physical constants via E = mc[sup]2[/sup], one gets 1 GeV/c[sup]2[/sup] = 1.783 × 10[sup]−27[/sup] kg which is a convenient unit of mass, again for particle physicists.
Similarly “kilotons” form a convenient unit of energy for the Dr Strangelove types (cf. “World Targets in Megadeaths”).
When I was at Keflavik the Air Force decided to destroy some out of date bombs. Since our direction-finding station was in a remote part of the base they set up shop in the vicinity, a couple miles away I think. The 100-pound bombs you had to be outside when they were touched off to hear them. You could feel the concussion of the 250-pounders inside but not hear them inside.