How Blast Waves Cause Damage
Blast waves cause damage by a combination of the severe condensing of the air in front of the wave (forming a shock front) and the subsequent wind that follows. A blast wave travels faster than the speed of sound and the passage of the shock wave usually only lasts a few milliseconds. Like other types of explosions, a blast wave can also cause damage to things and people by the blast wind, debris, and fires. The original explosion will send out fragments that travel very fast. Debris and sometimes even people can get swept up into a blast wave, causing more injuries such as penetrating wounds, impalement, broken bones, or even death. The blast wind is the area of low pressure that causes debris and fragments to actually rush back towards the original explosions. The blast wave can also cause fires or even secondary explosions by a combination of the high temperatures that result from detonation and the physical destruction of fuel-containing objects.
Read more about this topic: Blast Wave
Famous quotes containing the words blast, waves and/or damage:
“I care not by what measure you end the war. If you allow one single germ, one single seed of slavery to remain in the soil of America, whatever may be your object, depend upon it, as true as effect follows cause, that germ will spring up, that noxious weed will thrive, and again stifle the growth, wither the leaves, blast the flowers, and poison the fair fruits of freedom. Slavery and freedom cannot exist together.”
—Ernestine L. Rose (1810–1892)
“His bold head
‘Bove the contentious waves he kept, and oared
Himself with his good arms in lusty stroke
To the shore.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“I learned early to understand that there is no such condition in human affairs as absolute truth. There is only truth as people see it, and truth, even in fact, may be kaleidoscopic in its variety. The damage such perception did to me I have felt ever since ... I could never belong entirely to one side of any question.”
—Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973)