Increasing the surface area of a compound makes chemical reactions faster, such as coal dust as compared to a lump of coal. Putting the match heads in a blender might created conditions where it could have generated a low speed explosion, which (as every school boy knows) is possible with match heads even without grinding them.
More specifically this regarding gunpowder (wikipedia) and how smaller grains make burning faster, even when the smaller grains are loosely packed.
The hard, dense product was broken again into tiny pieces, which were separated with sieves to produce a uniform product for each purpose: coarse powders for cannons, finer grained powders for muskets, and the finest for small hand guns and priming.[105] Inappropriately fine-grained powder often caused cannons to burst before the projectile could move down the barrel, due to the high initial spike in pressure.[106] Mammoth powder with large grains, made for Rodmanās 15-inch cannon, reduced the pressure to only 20 percent as high as ordinary cannon powder would have produced.[107]
In the mid-nineteenth century, measurements were made determining that the burning rate within a grain of black powder (or a tightly packed mass) is about 0.20 fps, while the rate of ignition propagation from grain to grain is around 30 fps, over two orders of magnitude faster.[105
Google says that ābinderā might be butyl rubber gel, but I think Iād use dextrose because it both binds and burns nicely and Iād know what to expect from it.
Ah brings back happy childhood memories. Get a used steel CO2 cartridge, pack it full of match heads, shoot it through a pipe at a telephone pole. See how deep the missile buries into the pine! A kid caught doing this today would be sent to Gitmo.
Given how many NASA people started their careers with homemade rockets, culling the ranks of the future rocket scientists will have a strongly negative impact on long-term national security.
Watching the slo mo, it seemed as if the top match heads caught fire and burned a layer of ash that insulated the match heads at the bottom of the blender. It looked like many of the match heads remained unburnt.
When we were kids we used to take thick cardboard tubes (spent model rocket engines). We took a standard one, filled it up, a D size and filed it half way up, Slide the smaller into the larger and tape it with lots of masking tape. A fuze in one of the nozzles andā¦
Basically an M-80. Extreme danger and extreme fun wrapped into one pyrotechnic package!
The arrangement of stars in an aerial shell isnāt dissimilar to how those match heads were arranged in the blender.
When the aerial shellās time fuse ignites the blast charge and stars, it lights evenly throughout the shell because of the pressure induced by the shellās structural integrity. Without that pressure added to the heat already present, what you observed in the blender is what happens.
You are so right. As a young numbnut I recall getting hold of a very large diameter bolt, screwing on a large nut halfway onto the very end, placing 5 or 6 match heads in the created hollow. We then gently screwed another bolt in, just snug. Tossed the contraption high in the air above the street and scattered. Very satisfying loud bang.
Since that was so much fun, lets add more match heads. Did that, tossed, bigger bang and, oh look, a boltās missing? We fruitlessly looked around, then moved on to other thrills.
Weeks later, horsing around in the backyard I was knocked to the ground and felt something hard. Yep, the bolt. It had been blown over the two-story house into the backyard. Could easily have maimed one of us or done some serious property damage.
Hey, I loved your Sullivanās Travels. Havenāt seen anything new from you lately though. I guess that whole ābeing deadā thing takes up a lot of your time now.
After three Weeks in orbit, it was time for the bolt to return home. Special Thanks are due to the Flight Controllers who were able to guide the bolt in for a precision landing a scant 20 meters from itās launching point.
