yeah.
Are you asking a question, or making an observation?
I woud assume that the implied question is “How much strength would be needed to open a can of Bud by squeezing the can, as opposed to the more traditional method of pulling the tab?”. I don’t know the answer to this, but I can offer a very simple experiment. Place a can of Bud on a hard surface (such as the floor), lying on its side. Pile bricks or other heavy objects on it until it ruptures. When it does, weigh the objects. That’s the strength needed.
I should mention, of course, that the strength required would be grip strength. Grip strength is not necessarily corellated with the strength of any other muscle group, and is itself not terribly relevant for most tasks, so I’m not sure how useful the answer would be. The only other situation I can think of where it would be relevant is giving crushing handshakes, but I think we can agree from the outset that anyone capable of squeezing open hs beer is probably going to be painful to shake with.
Serendipity.
My first post on the SDMB was about the strength of beer cans as opposed to pop cans.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=4720&highlight=beer
Of course, it doesn’t answer the OP(whatever the OP is/was).
Oh, cool! They measure that the same way they measure the maximum weight vehicles can be on bridges!
A kudo to the Doper who gets that reference.
[CynicalGabe], if you don’t know the answer, just [say so].
It’d be the same for soda or beer as the can technology and contents are essentially is the same physics wise.
I have fairly strong hands and have tried squeezing soda cans just for the hell of it (outdoors - I was bored). The aluminum skin material is so thin you can feel the skin of the can “stretch” and flex when you apply pressure, but there was no indication it was going to burst or blow out the ends. If you kept squeezing and flexing the can lots of times it might eventually crinkle or fatigue the metal skin but this would be kind of cheating as I assume you’re talking about a one shot squeeze to a fresh can.
You’d have to be a real powerhouse to pop a new soda can with one squeeze.
How is it being squeezed? Hand firmly wrapped around it, or fingertips only?
If the first, it’d take more effort, since the pressure is being more evenly distributed, just like the old “you can’t crush an egg by squeezing it” claim. (Which is bunk, BTW - I’ve done it.) It’d also take more than stacking weights on the can, again, due to the distribution of pressure.
Squeezing it by the fingertips? It’d take more oomph that I’ve got.
I’ve done the egg trick myself, but only once and made a mess. I don’t know why that one went and the rest didn’t.
Back to the OP, A good way that you can sort of safely test this is to put a can in a vice, perhaps putting a clear plastic bag around it. The you can see how much deformation is needed. I would WAG that the sides or seal would fail before the ‘pop top’.
Don’t worry. I got it, Calvin.
Strenth needed to squeeze open a 12oz can of Budweiser Statement: OhYeah
Question: More that you or most any othe doper can muster in his own two hands!
I learned a while back that “grip training” is a popular thing, the main objective seems to be having the ability to tear decks of playing cards and telephone books in half. I think the website is www.grippermania.com.
Yes, it’s a strange world.
Unclviny
Nah, the real holy grail of grip training is the Ironmind #4, a gripper that requires 365 psi to close. If you can do that one-handed, you get your name on a webpage somewhere. So far, it’s a one-name list.
Anyway, a couple observations:
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Grip strength is actually a pretty good indicator of overall health, surprisingly.
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A can ain’t gonna break out the top. Put a can behind one of your tires and drive over it, and you’ll find the top and bottom intact.
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I think it’s possible to squeeze a soda can open, but only a few of the strongest people in the world could manage it.
The list now holds five names.
I’m not so sure about that. A couple months ago when the weather was pretty chilly (well below zero), I accidentally left some cans of Coke in my car. And as you probably already guessed, as the liquid froze, it expanded, and… well, the inside of my car was covered in Coke slush the next morning. Gahhhh…
But the point in me telling this is, some post-disaster analysis revealed that the cans burst open in different places. A couple of them blew out the tab-thing (the part that becomes the hole you drink out of), and one ruptured the side of the can. So I’m going to have to disagree with you and say that blowing out the top is indeed possible. 
It’s worth pointing out that these cans burst because of increasing pressure from within - not because someone was increasing the pressure from without. Of course, squashing the can will increase the internal pressure, so it’s quite likely that the cause of the rupture in both cases would be pressure from the contents. It might be that the deformation of the can by the gripper (which would be different to the deformation from expanding frozen liquid) would alter the places in which weak points would form, however.
Gosh, what an unnecessary post… no conclusion or useful observation. I’m going to post it anyway though. :rolleyes:
When I was at University, I knew a guy who had a glass eye. Apparently, he lost the original eye through a bet when he was at school…
He and a mate put a plastic bottle of a drink (don’t know all the details, sorry) in a vice, and dared each other to take turns tightening the vice - you guessed it - it exploded on his turn and a shard of plastic blinded him in one eye. So kanicbird’s suggestion of a bag is a good idea - maybe some safety goggles too.
Or dare a friend, perhaps? 
In that case, there’s equal pressure on all parts of the can, and it’s the weak point that’ll go. In the case of gripping, the pressure is only on a few parts of the can, so the break is going to be somewhere around there.
Try the driving experiment I mentioned earlier.
“Proper grip training”?