Junk_Enginerd - 28-8-2021 at 01:10
I just had a small revelation and wanted to see if it makes any sense. I watched a video of a prince ruperts drop shattering inside a glass of water.
The water transmitted the shockwave efficiently enough that that glass also shattered.
Now this got me thinking... Prince ruperts drops have a significant amount of energy stored in them, which is clear enough when they shatter. I've
tried it myself with a small drop in a gloved hand, and the shock was pretty strong and left my hand tingling, like a small firecracker.
Is this not exactly what is needed to initiate a high explosive? A shockwave which delivers a high enough amount of energy at sonic speeds? I couldn't
find any information on just how much energy gets stored, but at least that the speed of the shockwave is 2000-3000 m/s.
And yes, let's not go into the discussion of how unsafe it would be to have something that breaks from a light touch as an explosives initiator lol.
I'm mostly interested in the science of it.
MineMan - 28-8-2021 at 19:54
This has been discussed in another thread.
Junk_Enginerd - 28-8-2021 at 23:16
I noticed that after making this thread. But I don't understand this forum mentality about being against discussing something that has been discussed
before. That thread devolved into people failing to make ruperts drops, and never got anywhere with the original question. It was also 5 years ago, so
new people and/or new information might have come up since then.
unionised - 29-8-2021 at 02:41
The issue isn't about discussing something which has been discussed before- especially if you have anything to add.
The problem is creating new threads which just make the forum harder to search.
The previous thread is here
http://www.sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=79241
It might make sense to merge this with it.
[Edited on 29-8-21 by unionised]
MineMan - 31-8-2021 at 16:16
Yah. Just add to the last post my man