Space/Science — HabitableZone

Space/Science » in reply to You didnt give a number

re: You didnt give a number
gbaikie — (archived)

"You may use a calculator...

WHAT is the average power of the detonation of a 1kg cube of TNT? hint, its a bit more than 250 W

Some numbers that may help:
Density of TNT is ~1.6 g/cm3 this depends a bit on your source- some sources say 1.65

velocity of detonation of TNT is ~6900 m/s again, this depends a bit on your source- some sources say 7500m/s

energy released in detonation of one ton of TNT is ~4.2 GJ "

Well what is important is the time component. By 250 W I could assume you mean 250 W per sec. Though I suspect in Johannes post he was confusing it with 250 W per Year or something.
What you asking is how much "work" can be done by 1kg of TNT.
I don't see how density of TNT helps, here. You could use the 6900 m/s, I suppose. But the 4.2 GJ per ton provide the answer because Joule expresses work done.
A GJ is a billion joules, so a Kg of TNT is 4.2 million joules.

4.2 million joules is expression of work* or power though I suppose you want it in watts per sec- or I'll just do hour and anyone can times this number by 3600 for the sec.

The answer is 1.166666666667 kwh or 1166.666666667 watt hours.
I used this conversion table:
http://www.unit-conversion.info/energy.html

*energy released is not same as work that can be done, because no machine is 100% efficient- but considering the topic I think that's nit picking.

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