The "main charge" was a little plastic container with about 0.5 ml capacity.
This was completely filled with the high energetic NG (60-80%) + MHN (20-40%) + NC (0-10%) gel.
The percentages are kinda rough, I know, but the effect will differ very little within these values,
and you can costomise the gel thickness for different applications ...
As a detonator, I used:
- 0.02 ml slightly compressed silver acetylide
- that's it !!
Well, what can I say; push about 1.5 cm of silver acetylide in a 2mm diameter plastic straw,
go around the pushing end of the straw with a bit of teflon tape (not too much) and "wipe" it closed.
Now cut off the piece of straw 1 cm above the silver acetylide, and push in a fuse, compressing the SA a bit.
Slide the tiny detonator in the tiny main charge, and go find a not so tiny test subject ...
Hmm, let's see what we have around here (my lab and surroundings) ... oh look !! hydraulic tubing :)
Don't mistake this for a regular piece of tube!
This is high pressure resistant (250-300 bar standard working pressure) seamless stainless steel tubing.
The perfect test subject for the perfect (within the grasp of the home experimenter) explosive !!
Measurements: 12 mm outer diameter / 9 mm inner diameter which makes for a wall thickness of 1.5 mm
I also found a thinner tube that could join the test and filled 1 cm of it with the gel.
Measurements of this tube: 6 mm outer diameter / 4 mm inner diameter => wall thickness = 1 mm
The effects:
What can I say? Probably the heaviest destructive test the 12 mm tube ever had :)
The thin piece of tube got less stressed, just because there was little room for explosive.
You can see where the detonator was, because there the tube is allmost not affected.
A bit further, the gel gets going and increases the outer diameter to 7 mm :)
no ruptures anywhere, just a smooth expanded surface ... maybe a good way to make things "fit" :)
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