• Question: what is the best thing you have ever blown up

    Asked by klbihateskoda to Freya, Katy, Louise, Pamela on 15 Mar 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Louise Pendry

      Louise Pendry answered on 15 Mar 2010:

      Hahahaha – unfortunately my car engine. I ran out of oil on the motorway. I am officially a moron 🙁

      I have never blown up anything at work thank goodness.

    • Photo: Pamela Docherty

      Pamela Docherty answered on 15 Mar 2010:

      I’ve never blown anything up! Sorry to disappoint!

    • Photo: anon

      anon answered on 15 Mar 2010:

      Hey there,

      When things explode, it is because a great deal of energy has been contained and that container gives way really quickly. This almost always means that the container fragments fly off in all directions at very high speed. These fragments (shrapnel) can cause a lot of injury so please be careful if you want to do blow things up.

      As for the best thing I’ve blown up…this comes in two catagories: 1. on purpose & 2. accidently.

      1. The best thing I blew up was a “homemade” water rocket, partly because I made the rocket and partly because it went slightly wrong :).

      I made it out of 2L cola bottle, filled it about 2/3 full with water and put a bike tyre valve in the neck. I then made it stand up (with the neck facing downwards) and pumped air into the bottle using a bike pump. This increased the amount of air above the water. Because the volume of the bottle did not change, the air pressure increased and the water experienced a big force. As I kept adding air the pressure on the water increased until it forced the tyre valve out. Without the tyre valve all the pressurised water comes out really, really quickly and the plastic bottle flies into the air. Now, the bottle I was using flew up about 20m into the air and landed on the roof of the school I was teaching at – oops.

      Oh yes, can you guess where all the water went??…yup…all over the person using the bike pump!!

      2. The best “accidental” blow up, don’t really count as “best” as they can be really dangerous and if I told you what happened you might try it at home (dull I know, but those are the rules). All I will say is: avoid putting your gran’s gold-rimmed cup into her new microwave…..

      Take Care,
      Helen

      PS: Why do you hate Skoda??

    • Photo: Katy Milne

      Katy Milne answered on 15 Mar 2010:

      I don’t blow things up – my job is to make sure that things don’t break. However, I do get to see companies test things quite often. The coolest thing I ever saw was a break test for an entire aeroplane wing. They put an aeroplane wing in a massive room, like a hangar, and then bent it until it snapped. The energy that was released was amazing. The entire room shook! The company needed to make sure that the wing would withstand the forces that they thought it would be exposed to in the air. It did and took loads of force to break.

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