Combustion, Explosion, and Shock Waves, Vol. 40, No. 6, pp.

686693, 2004

Action of the Coastal 1000-Ton Surface Explosion on the Environment

V. V. Adushkin1 and B. D. Khristoforov1
UDC 550.348+551

Translated from Fizika Goreniya i Vzryva, Vol. 40, No. 6, pp. 8492, NovemberDecember, 2004. Original article submitted October 2, 2003.

Results of experimental investigations of the action of a coastal surface explosion of a 1000-ton TNT charge on the environment are presented. Available databases were used, which are generally utilized for predicting ecological consequences of natural and man-induced explosive catastrophes, development of new methods of monitoring and identication of phenomena under consideration, their experimental and mathematical modeling, and testing of the models being developed. Key words: explosion, explosion products, explosion cloud, explosion crater, shock wave, databases, ecology.

INTRODUCTION The year 2004 is the 100th anniversary of M. A. Sadovskii, an outstanding geophysicist and a specialist in the eld of explosion physics. He was the academic leader of many programs with the use of large-scale explosions in geophysical research, including those aimed at deep seismic probing of the Earth, search for minerals, determination of earthquake precursors, studying the inner structure of the Earth, testing of military machinery, etc. [1]. The results of those studies and developments are still important. Based on the results of these works, databases are generated on dynamic explosive processes in geophysics; because of more frequent natural and man-induced catastrophes, these databases are used for predicting ecological consequences of various explosive catastrophes, development of new methods of monitoring and identication of phenomena under consideration, their experimental and mathematical modeling, and testing of the models being developed [24]. It is also expedient to have simple estimates of eciency of various sources of explosion in the near zone where the maximum damage is observed. The results of experimental investigations of the action of a coastal surface explosion of a 1000-ton TNT charge, available in the database, are presented below.
1

Fig. 1. Layout of the test site, bottom, and water area: 1) explosion point; 2) boat; 3) boundary of the defrosted layer.

LAYOUT OF THE EXPERIMENT The explosion was performed at 18:00:00 Moscow time on August 25, 1987 approximately 100 m away from the coastal line. The explosion was lmed, and the waves in air, water, and soil were registered. The air blast waves (BW) were registered on the shore by SD-725, DD-10, and other devices, and also with the use of the timedistance relationship. The pressure waves in water refracted from the bottom and air were measured from a specially equipped boat placed by its broadside toward the explosion at a distance of 590 m. Figure 1 shows the layout of the test eld (cut in the plane ini-

Institute of Geosphere Dynamics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow 119334; khrist@idg.chph.ras.ru.

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0010-5082/04/4006-0686 c 2004 Springer Science + Business Media, Inc.

Action of the Coastal 1000-Ton Surface Explosion on the Environment tiation siteboat). The distance from the explosion center to the shore toward the boat was 157 m. Piezoelectric pressure probes were dropped into water at a depth of 2 to 9 m from the boat rostrum and stern; the depth of the bottom was more than 10 m. The explosion was initiated at the central bottom point of the charge located on a small, relatively smooth part of the shore 300400 m wide with a 312 slope from south to north toward the water area in the permafrost zone. The depth of frozen soil reaches 300 m. In summer, the upper layers of soil containing pebbles and gravel are defrosted by 3.64.8 m. Down to 20 m, there are alternating layers of sand and clay sand with pebbles and gravel. A typical density of soil at a depth below the sea level is 16201750 kg/m3 ; the velocity of longitudinal waves is 3 km/sec. The velocity of sound and the density of soil increase with depth. The sediments are located on a rocky foundation where the velocity of longitudinal waves is 5.3 km/sec. The charge composed of 24,000 sacks of ake TNT with a total mass of 974 tons was located on a wooden deck and had the form of a cylinder 17.8 m in diameter and 4.6 m high with the apex shaped as a truncated cone with a height of 1.6 m and a diameter of the upper base of 3.8 m. The height of the deck from the side of the boat was 1.2 m (about 9 m above the water level). A striker consisting of 880 boxes lled by cast TNT with a mass of 22 tons was located in the central part of the charge over its entire height. The upper part of the charge contained 165 boxes of cast TNT with a mass of 4 tons. The mean HE density in the charge was 780 kg/m3 . An additional mass was 38 tons, which included 26 tons of packing material and 12 tons of water in wet sacks.

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0.8 sec

3.6 sec

MEASUREMENT OF THE CRATER PARAMETERS AND EXPLOSION CLOUD The photographs of explosion development are shown in Fig. 2. The measured detonation velocities were 5.2 km/sec in sacks with ake TNT and 5.6 km/sec in the cast TNT striker. During the registration, the cloud reached a lifting height H > 3.5 km. The averaged values of the crater radius over the free surface and ejected substance were 26.7 and 34 m, respectively. Deviations from the mean value were 10%. The height of the ejected substance was 3.5 m. The crater depth over the free surface was 16.5 m. The bottoms and side walls were formed by fragments of frozen soil; the side walls were steeper on the hill side and more gentle on the coastal side. The size of fragments inside and outside the crater reached 1.52 m. The radius of the

21.6 sec
Fig. 2. Photographs of the 1000-ton coastal surface explosion at the times of 0.8, 3.6, and 21.6 sec.

688 TABLE 1

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Crater Size and Lifting Height of the Cloud in Large-Scale Surface Explosions Explosion number 1 3 6 7 Date 27.02.1991 25.08.1987 20.11.1965 12.10.1960 HE mass, ton 901 1000 1152 1013 R, m 35 26.7 34.2 34.4 h, m 12 16.5 12 14 V , m3 11 600 23,500 25,900 H , km 4.5 3.5

Note. Explosion numbers were taken from the database [2].

Fig. 3. Shapes of the could at the initial and late stages of explosion development at the times of 0.4 (a) and 40 sec (b). Fig. 5. Time evolution of the lifting height of the explosion cloud and the radius of its base at the early stage of explosion evolution.

Fig. 4. Time evolution of the diameter of the upper part of the explosion cloud.

continuous pile of the ejected substance was 80 m. After that, there followed a system of cracks 67 m deep and 5060 mm wide, spaced by 45 m, and individual fragments and nely disperse fractions. The maximum scatter of individual fragments was 12001300 m.

The crater size counted from the free surface, the lifting height of the cloud formed by the 1000-ton explosion, and data on other explosions with a similar mass, performed on sites with soft soil, are summarized in Table 1. The smallest radius of the crater of the 1000ton explosion is R = 26.7 m, and its greatest depth is h = 16.5 m. A smaller radius of the crater and its greater depth, as compared to similar data for other explosions, can be attributed to the inuence of the hill slope. Figure 3 shows the typical shapes of the explosion cloud at the times of 0.4 and 40 sec. The following gures show the time evolution of the diameter of the upper part of the explosion cloud (Fig. 4), the time evolution of the lifting height of the cloud and the radius of its base at the early stage of explosion-cloud development (Fig. 5), and the time evolution of the cloud volume and its lifting height at the late stage of explosion development (Fig. 6). First, the cloud has the maximum radius near the Earth surface; at the nal stage,

Action of the Coastal 1000-Ton Surface Explosion on the Environment TABLE 2

Parameters of the Air Blast Wave R, m 60.5 70 125 216 320 405 472 554 593 680 771 956 996 1208 1262 1593 2030 2446 2833 3010 3443 4184 pmax , bar 23.9 20.2 8.9 2.6 1.12 0.71 0.56 0.45 0.37 0.38 0.37 0.21 0.13 0.112 0.126 0.102 0.063 0.049 0.039 0.042 0.038 0.026 t+ , msec 46.5 43.5 107 164 229 307 296 330 388 381 420 507 782 446 528 598 612 774 775 811 844 850 I+ , bar sec 0.257 0.305 0.166 0.105 0.081 0.064 0.051 0.049 0.042 0.038 0.031 0.035 0.021 0.023 0.022 0.014 0.014 0.013 0.0098 0,0086 0.0075 e+ , kJ/m2 99,000 521 337 255 174 143 71.1 56.8 30.7 39.9 30.8 12.5 9.3 7.8 4.57 3.54 2.44 E+ , 106 MJ 3.05 0.537 0.471 0.491 0.504 0.54 0.41 0.355 0.28 0.40 0.491 0.324 0.348 0.288 0.26 0.264 0.268 t, msec 71 908 876 976 1127 1243 1560 1789 1910 1562 1794 1870 2360 2267 2500 2600 2210 e, kJ/m2 99,544 602.48 385.58 347.48 211.84 177.68 86.60 57.49 40.72 50.50 38.39 15.52 11.42 8.09 5.93 4.63 3.02 E, 106 MJ 3.07 0.621 0.539 0.671 0.615 0.672 0.498 0.359 0.37 0.505 0.612 0.422 0.429 0.374 0.337 0.345 0.332 E+ /E0 , % 72.8 12.8 11.28 11.28 12.1 12.9 9.76 8.49 6.74 9.7 11.8 7.75 8.3 6.9 6.22 6.31 6.41

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Fig. 6. Time evolution of the lifting height of the cloud and its volume at the late stage of explosion development.

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Fig. 7. Maximum excess pressure, duration, and specic impulse of the compression phase of the air BW versus the distance on the shore: the solid curves refer to the approximation of experimental data and dotand-dashed curves refer to the calculations by Sadovskiis formulas; the BW prole was registered at a distance of 70 (a), 997 (b), and 4184 m (c); pmax = 20.2 (a), 0.13 (b), and 0.026 bar (c).

it acquires a mushroom-shaped form, rises to a lifting height above 3 km, and becomes scattered. Chemical reactions in explosion products are terminated at the end of the initial stage of development of the glowing cloud (1 sec) when its lifting height reaches 250 m. After that the cloud rises and expands owing to intense mixing of explosion products with air and suction of soil and dust.

and its positive phase, I+ is the specic impulse of the positive BW phase, e, E and e+ , E+ are the specic and total energies of the BW and its positive phase, and E0 is the energy of the explosion. Experimental oscillograms and dependences of the excess maximum pressure, duration and impulse of the positive phase of the air BW as functions of the distance near the Earth surface are shown in Fig. 7. The dot-and-dashed curves refer to the calculations by the formulas pmax = 0.95/(R/M 1/3 ) +3.9/(R/M 1/3 )2 + 13.0/(R/M 1/3 )3 , t+ = 1.35M 1/6 R1/2 , I+ = 0.0035M 2/3 /R (1)

MEASUREMENT OF PARAMETERS OF THE AIR BLAST WAVE The digitized oscillograms of the air BW are listed in Table 2, where R is the distance, pmax is the maximum pressure, t and t+ are the durations of the BW

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Fig. 8. Diagram of pressure in water measured at point No. 6 (see Table 3) at a depth h = 2 m from the boat rostrum: the dashed curve is the wave refracted from air to water, calculated in the acoustic approximation.

Fig. 9. Comparison of records of the vertical mass velocity on the shore (a) and the pressure of the underwater wave at a depth of 8 m (b) at an identical distance of 590 m from the explosion epicenter: the dashed curve shows the measured results, and the solid curve is the calculation of pressure in water.

Fig. 10. Increment of the maximum pressure in water in the rst (1) and second (2) groups of waves (longitudinal and transverse waves refracted from the bottom) versus the depth of the probe h.

proposed by M. A. Sadovskii for determining the parameters of surface explosions of TNT charges of mass M > 100 kg in the range 1 < R/M 1/3 < 10 m/kg1/3 [1]. Noticeably lower air BW parameters in the near zone, as compared to formulas (1), are caused by the inuence of the crater-formation process and comparatively low HE density in the charge.

MEASUREMENT OF SHOCK-WAVE PARAMETERS IN WATER Typical diagrams of pressure in water are plotted in Fig. 8a and b and Fig. 9b. The rst waves that arrive at the probe are the longitudinal wave p1 and transverse wave p2 refracted from the bottom. The time of their registration is 180 msec. After that, with a delay of 800 msec, there arrives the wave refracted from air (see Fig. 8b). The time of its registration

is also 180 msec. The dashed curve is the pressure diagram calculated in the acoustic approximation for the wave refracted from air to water with allowance for its reection from the boat. Registration of the water wave (T-phase) passing from the shore with a velocity of 1.43 km/sec requires duration of records (see Fig. 8a) up to 250 msec, which are not available in the database. Figure 9a shows the vertical velocity vz of soil, recorded by the on-shore probe at a distance of 590 m from the explosion epicenter; the measured and calculated time evolution of pressure in water at a depth h = 8 m near the boat rostrum are shown in Fig. 9b. Satisfactory quantitative agreement between numerical and experimental data at the beginning of the oscillograms is observed. Some characteristics of longitudinal and transverse pressure waves in water, refracted from the bottom, are

692 TABLE 3
AmplitudeTime Characteristics of Longitudinal

Adushkin and Khristoforov

and Transverse Pressure Waves in Water, Refracted from the Bottom Point number 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 h, m 8 7 5 6 4 2 9 8 5 8 5 2 p1 , bar 0.78 0.76 0.53 0.64 0.45 0.21 0.86 0.76 0.46 0.74 0.46 0.14 t+1 , msec 19 20 18 19.5 18 18 19 19 18 19 18 18 p2 , bar 0.5 0.46 0.18 0.38 0.23 0.13 0.38 0.45 0.14 0.25 0.22 0.08 t+2 , msec 10 11.5 10 10.5 10 11 11 12 9 10 8.5 12

Fig. 11. Crater of the 1000-ton coastal surface explosion after one year.

summarized in Table 3, where p1 , t+1 and p2 , t+2 are the maximum amplitudes of excess pressure and the times of positive phases in the rst and second groups of waves in Fig. 8a, respectively. Figure 10 shows the parameters p1 and p2 as functions of the probe depth h. The maximum pressure decreases as the probe approaches the free surface because of the superposition of the rarefaction wave reected from the free surface. EFFECT OF THE EXPLOSION ON THE ENVIRONMENT The distribution of fractions of ejected soil over the distance is shown in Table 4. No penetration of water

into the crater was noted for a long time, apparently, because of the permafrost conditions. Figure 11 shows the crater lled by water (the photograph was taken one year after the explosion). The height of the ejected substance became much smaller because of slipping of soil into the crater and disintegration of large fragments of frozen soil. In a town located at a distance of 4 km, where the measured excess pressure in the shock wave (SW) was 0.035 bar, slate roong on all buildings was destroyed. Window frames and doors were damaged, and cracks appeared in ceilings and walls. The glasses were destroyed completely in windows facing the explosion and only partly in windows located along the SW direction. Approximately 30% of glasses were destroyed, which amounted to 1 800 m2 . At the outskirts of the town facing the explosion, at a distance of 3600 m, where the measured value was pmax = 0.045 bar, there was a one-storey wooden house and a hangar made of corrugated tin sheets of height of 4 m and width of 25 m over the front of action. The doors located along the direction of SW propagation in both buildings were pressed out. The window frames in the house were knocked out, and the frontal and side walls of the hangar were crushed. The data on the inuence of the air BW on various types of machinery were also obtained. The distribution of specic energy of the explosion e in air, soil, and water was determined by processing oscillograms from the expression valid in the acoustic approximation:

Action of the Coastal 1000-Ton Surface Explosion on the Environment TABLE 4

Distribution of Fractions of Soil Ejected from the Crater Distance, m 80100 100200 800 1200 Layer thickness, mm 50150 2030 1.5 0.51.0 Particle size, mm 510 15 0.51 < 0 .1

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e=

p2 dt/c [kJ/m ]

( is the density and c is the velocity of sound). Based on the analysis of data on arrival times of the waves, we obtained the following values of density and wave velocity in soil: = 2000 kg/m3 and c = 4.9 km/sec. The velocity of sound in water was assumed to be c = 1.43 km/sec. In air (see Table 2), the total BW energy decreased from 70 to 6% of the explosion energy over a distance of 704180 m. Correspondingly, the total energy transferred to soil in the near zone was 30%. The values obtained at a distance of 590 m in air, soil, and water at a depth of 5 m were e 320, 0.75, and 0.13 kJ/m2 , respectively, or 17, 0.04, and 0.01% of the explosion energy. These results agree with the data obtained in explosions of 100-kg spherical TNT charges half-embedded into water [5], where the fraction of energy of the air BW was 8% of the explosion energy at the corresponding distances. The database [2] oers information about the parameters of explosive shock waves in various media in the Excel format, which can be used for testing models of dynamic processes in geophysics.

database. The maximum lifting heights of the cloud are similar for all explosions. For the coastal explosion, the crater depth is 30% greater and the radius is smaller, which can be attributed to the inuence of the slope. 4. By processing oscillograms of the air BW in the range of distances of 704200 m, the values of the maximum pressure, duration, specic impulse, and energy of the positive phase, and total duration and energy of the blast wave, including the negative phase, were determined. The results are compared with the calculations by Sadovskiis empirical formulas [1]. Their satisfactory agreement with experimental data is noted outside the near zone, where the formulas are applicable. 5. Piezoelectric measurements of the SW pressure in water at a distance of 590 m from the explosion at a depth of 29 m during the time of approximately 1 sec were obtained. Arrival of longitudinal and transverse waves refracted from the bottom and waves refracted from air was registered. With decreasing depth, the pressure of refracted longitudinal and transverse waves decreases because of their interaction with the free surface of water. 6. The explosion-energy distributions in various media were estimated. Thus, at a distance of 590 m, the fractions of energy transferred to air, soil, and water are 17, 0.04, and 0.01%, respectively. This work was supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (Grant No. 02-05-64134).

REFERENCES

CONCLUSIONS 1. Some results of an experimental study of a 1000ton coastal explosion performed on a hill slope inclined toward a water reservoir under permafrost conditions are described. 2. High-speed lming made it possible to nd the time evolution of the shape, size, and volume of the explosion cloud. The maximum lifting height of the cloud was 3.5 km. By the time of 40 sec, the lifting height of the cloud and the diameters of its lower and upper parts reached 2, 0.75, and 1.2 km, respectively, and the cloud volume was approximately 0.8 km3 . 3. The crater size and the lifting height of the cloud were compared with the data for other 1000-ton explosions on soft soil, which were available from the

1. M. A. Sadovskii, Geophysics and Physics of Explosion [in Russian], Nauka, Moscow (1999). 2. V. V. Adushkin and B. D. Khristoforov, Database on nuclear and large-scale chemical explosions with ejection into the atmosphere, Registered Certicate No. 2863 dated December 12, 1997 (Registered as No. 0229703124 in the State Register); Database Natural and maninduced catastrophic phenomena such as explosions with ejection of products into the atmosphere, Registered Certicate No. 7568 dated December 29, 2001 (Registered as No. 0220108099 in the State Register). 3. M. Eneva, J. L. Stevens, B. D. Khristoforov, et al., Analysis of hydroacoustic data for CTBT monitoring, Pure Appl. Geophys., 158, 605626 (2001). 4. V. V. Adushkin, V. V. Garnov, and B. D. Khristoforov, Estimation of parameters of an emergency explosion by comparisons with test explosions, Bezopas. Trud. Prom., No. 4, 2832 (2001). 5. V. P. Korobeinikov and B. D. Khristoforov, Underwater explosion, Itogi Nauki Tekh., Gidromekh., 9, 54114 (1976).