Detonating Cord - Direct Employment

Direct Employment

Low-yield detonating cord can be used as a precision cutting charge to remove cables, pipes, wiring, fiber optics, and other utility bundles by placing one or more complete wraps around the target. Detcord/Primacord is used in commercial boilers to break up clinkers (solidified coal ash slag) adhering to tube structures. Higher-yield detonating cord can be used to cut down small trees, although the process is very uneconomical compared to using bulk explosive, or even a chainsaw. High-yield detonating cord placed by divers has been used to remove old dock pilings and other underwater obstructions. Creating a slipknot from detonating cord yields a field improvised device that can be quickly employed to cut a locked doorknob off a door. Det cord can be taped in several rings, to the outline of a military man-sized target and detonated, breaching a man-sized hole into wooden doors or light interior walls. Detonating cord is also employed directly in building demolition where thin concrete slabs need be broken via channels drilled parallel to the surface, an advantage over dynamite since a lower minimum of explosive force may be used and smaller diameter holes are sufficient to contain the explosive. Anything much more substantial than these uses requires the use of additional explosives.