The Thermobarric Bomb (FOAB)

We have all read recently of the FOAB (Father of all bombs) developed by Russia.
The bomb is carries 4 times the payload of the US MOAB (Mother of all bombs).

Most articles on the bomb equates the detonation of the bomb to be near equivelant to the efficiency of a nuclear bomb, with less side effects, of course. (No leftover radiation).

My question is, what is the theory behind how this weapon works.
I've been trying to find information on how the warhead works, but I havent been able to get anything other than how the name translates (thermo = heat, barric = pressure)

So it relies on heat under pressure... which still tells me little to nothing about how it works.

Does anyone have any information?

Thermobaric means heat and pressure. The US and Russia, and many others, have been producing these types of weapons for decades. The advatage is that oxygen from the air is used instead of carrying it in the explosive chemical. But the new one from Russia is different.


news.bbc.co.uk...

According to the BBC report it uses nano technology. Yes, thats tech that deals with tiny particles. Nanoaluminum can greatly increase the force of explosives.

technologyreview.com...

Nanoenergetics are changing the shape of warfare. Not as powerful as nuclear weapons but without the radiation.

Excellent, this gives me something to start with in understanding it.

So it works much the same way that a Fuel-Air bomb works, however, I still need to figure out what makes it so devestating. I mean, theres a big difference between igniting a vapor of fuel, and creating a blast of that magnitude.

Thank you so much for those links.

The high surface area of the aluminum nanoparticles speeds the combustion by an order of magnitude(or more I forget). This results in a more devastating explosion and less wasted explosives.

Researchers can greatly increase the power of weapons by adding materials known as superthermites that combine nanometals such as nanoaluminum with metal oxides such as iron oxide, according to Steven Son, a project leader in the Explosives Science and Technology group at Los Alamos.

"The advantage (of using nanometals) is in how fast you can get their energy out," Son says.

And here I thought regular thermite was badass.

[edit on 15-9-2007 by sardion2000]

You beat me to it my friend.

Yes, I just read that... aparrently superthermites react to combustion much faster than any other classification of particles. Which creates a VERY fast shockwave of combustion travelling outward.

I think I understand now how the effects are so devestating.

However, what is the molecular make-up of a Superthermite?

It's pretty much the same as Regular thermite. The only difference is the granularity of the Aluminum(regular Thermite uses fine 100 mesh). I love playing with regular thermite because its just sooo easy to make. Just rust and aluminum powder and a magnesium strip for ignition(it's not illigal to own, make or use btw). I know that superthermite is probably a bit more complicated, but it doesn't sound much more complicated. Getting the Aluminum to the right granularity sounds like the most complicated part of the whole manufacturing process.

[edit on 16-9-2007 by sardion2000]

The idea of more surface area makes a lot of sense to me. It's probably one of the key reasons for the power of this bomb. It's like how you can be in a grain silo and set off an explosion with a spark because of all the particulate grain dust, but if you set fire to grain, it just burns.

Just remembered this video since we are talking about explosives.

www.metacafe.com...

So basically the FOAB is just a giant thermite bomb enhanced with nanotechnology? And here I thought it used some fancy new chemical compounds. Do you think the bomb itself had any specialized shaped components or anything of that sort to increase the explosive power?

Also, with conventional weapons reaching the strength of nukes, how does this change the face of the battlefield? Are nukes obsolete now?

This could also be used to create smaller implosion mechanisms... Laptop Nuke anyone? :shudder: IANANP(I am not a nuclear physist) so the size estimate on my part is speculative.

how does this change the face of the battlefield?

"Shock and Awe" will become favored tactics on the battlefield. These things won't be used at a whim, but will probably be used mostly for psychological purposes. Go and evacuate a small town and then drop a FOAB on it. News of this will spread rapidly and people will fear that more then they do a tank or soldiers. Those you can fight. This is something else altogether... I feel that we may enter new expansionist era this century. Built on intimidation and forced surrenders ala Japan WW2. I could be wrong or I could be right for only a few decades as DEWs could quite possibly render most if not all projectile/ballistic weapons obsolete.

[edit on 16-9-2007 by sardion2000]

From doing some research I have located some very useful websites.
Have a look for your selfs.
en.wikipedia.org...
en.wikipedia.org...
www.globalsecurity.org...
news.bbc.co.uk...
www.defensetech.org...

reply to post by Beachcoma


Thermite is one type of pyromorphic material that can take advatage of Nano materials, but that doesn't mean the russians used aluminum/iron in their bomb. Likely it was something much more energetic.

The thermite is great at rapidly creating high heat but has little explosive value.

"Superthermites can increase the (chemical) reaction time by a thousand times," Son says, resulting in a very rapid reactive wave.

I'm pretty sure they are using Superthermites which reacts quite differently then regular Thermite.

The only thing that I believe that they don't use, is Iron Oxide. They probably have a better substance to increase yield. The Nano-Aluminum is essential however.

Once again aother demostration of the awesome power of Mankinds war potential, I wunder how much 'Good' they could of done if they spent all that money on helping others. Why dont we stop killing each other and start helping ?

ProTo FF