Just about any mixture of acetylene and air or oxygen will detonate. Under the right conditions pure acetylene will detonate. Last year I filled a small (6 inch dia filled) ballon with acetylene and oxygen with the correct mixture and set it off. You really do not want to be anywhere near when it goes off! My ears were ringing for hours and I could feel the pressure wave push my pant legs back. Problem is that I am not sure how you would couple this explosion into the ground. Put on the surface the force would just reflect off the ground. So it would have to be buried. There is also a safety issue -- any tiny static charge on the ballon would set off the explosion and easily hurt someone.
Jim Hannon

---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
From: ChrisAtUpw@.......
Reply-To: psn-l@..............
Date:  Fri, 22 Jul 2005 13:46:30 EDT

>In a message dated 22/07/2005, royb1@........... writes:
>
>The carbide idea has some charm (I have a carbide cannon)  but careful 
>control of the acetylene-air ratio would be necessary to  achieve a 
>detonation.  Electrolysis of water automatically insures  stoichiometry.
>Hi Bob,
> 
>    Agreed, but have you worked out how long it would  take to get sufficient 
>H2 and O2 by electrolysis and the number of amp hours  required?
>    You would need inert electrodes in the water + lime  soda? 
> 
>    You know the volume of the bottle and hence the  volume of oxygen. You 
>now need to weigh out the right amount of CaC2, tip it in  the bottle and wait 
>till it stops fizzling. It would probably be good enough?  
>
>>    Alternatively, equip your self with some  balloons, fill them with 
>> acetylene + oxygen and apply a glowing fuse or  cigarette? I 
>> suggest setting the gas torch burning with the correct  flame shape, wipe 
>> out the flame and then fill the  balloon? 
>
>Again, stoichiometry would require careful  control of gas-air ratio. 
>Also, balloons are harder to bury than  bottles.
>
>
>
>The way my mind works, I was thinking of  using sausage shaped balloons blown 
>up inside a thin cardboard tube. If you  light the acetylene flame and adjust 
>the O2 to get a cylindrical  blue centre, you have the correct gas ratio. You 
>then push the flame onto  a cold flat surface to snuff it out and use the 
>nozzle to fill the  balloon? 
> 
>    This should work OK. It gets around having to have  a license to handle 
>explosives.
> 
>    Regards,
> 
>    Chris Chapman
>
>
--
Jim Hannon
http://www.fmtcs.com/web/jmhannon/
42,11.90N,91,39.26W
WB0TXL
--

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