What is this old car, with rounded shell, inch thick wood interior?

[J. Clarke]

A candle needs atmospheric oxygen. Nitro powder doesn't.

Then there's nitro itself, which goes boom in liquid bulk.

[Leon]

Understood but does the nitro not create oxygen during the transformation process?

[J. Clarke]

It releases it, it doesn't consume it.

in

[clare]

Not necessarily true. First of all, sublimation makes a vapour directly from a solid - no liquid pase required - and a solid that has it's own oxygenator included can burn without becoming a vapour - it does not need to aerosolize to mix with oxygen in order to burn. Most "High Explosives" work that way. Magnesium and Sodium do not turn to a vapour before burning either - nor does Lithium Any highly reactive element can "burn" from the solid state.

[krw]

You mean, like magnesium?

[John McCoy]

[e-mail] (Scott Lurndal) wrote in news:KTaCA.225725$ff2.3659 @fx41.iad:

Quite true, and the same applies to methanol. The difference is gasoline is more volatile, so it turns into vapor much more readily than methanol.

John

[krw]

It also has twice the energy density. Rinse, repeat.

[John McCoy]

[e-mail] wrote in news: [e-mail]:

True, altho that has no bearing on it's propensity to explode.

John

[clare]

Except when it DOES go off, Gasoline makes a much bigger bang. Diesel fuel is a lot less volatile, but with a higher energy density - as a Fuel/Air bomb it is VERY impressive.

[krw]

Sure it does. More energy causes more sublimation, causes more energy...

[Markem]

With the proper air to fuel ratio it can rival Dynomite.

[John McCoy]

[e-mail] wrote in news: [e-mail]:

You lost the context. I've snipped some of the thread to make it more clear: the reason gasoline is prone to explode in crashes, and alcohol isn't, is that gasoline is more volatile than alcohol. In that context energy density has no relevance.

John

[krw]

OK, the energy release has nothing to do with it. OK, then...