11 pounds of thermite vs 10 blocks of ice

[giza]

sethb's comment about how I should have used thermite on those old hard drives got me searching on YouTube for videos of thermite. Most of them were pretty much what I would expect -- various things being melted/destroyed by thermite.

Then I found the below video. It's 11 pounds of thermite being lit off on top of 10 large blocks of ice. The results are somewhat surprising!

Watch on YouTube

Comments

[rikoshi.livejournal.com]

Thermite is quite possibly the most entertaining substance in the world.

[giza.livejournal.com]

I think at a price/weight ratio, alcohol is more entertaining. ;-)

[rikoshi.livejournal.com]

That's a good point, though now you've got me wondering what sort of trouble I could get into if I had 11 pounds of alcohol. :)

[randomzen.livejournal.com]

I think we should split the difference and get both! The whole is always greater than the sum if their parts when alcohol is one of those parts.

[firedhusky.livejournal.com]

thermite is sooo sweet

[kellic.livejournal.com]

What no dry ice?

[rigelkitty.livejournal.com]

Looks like they're very lucky they didn't get hit by the rain of molten thermite.

[coppercheetah.livejournal.com]

I'm guessing that as soon as the thermite got outside the bucket, the instant vaporization of the ice to steam is what caused the explosion, since it had spaces inbetween the blocks to expand and press them outwards. (It would explain why several of the whole pieces of ice were cast aside.

What I'd like to see is them put that thermite bucket on top of a thick single column of ice, and let it melt its way through and have the column act like a barrel to focus it up into a nice pluming fountain (hopefully). But hey--that's just wishful thinking, right?

[omnibahumut.livejournal.com]

Awesome.

[nemetfox.livejournal.com]

Not that surprising (but I've seen it before on Brainiac).

The thermite superheats the ice, skipping the pesky liquid form of water, but does it right through the middle, making it explode.

Fun times.

[nightwind292.livejournal.com]

do me a favour?

Post the link to youtube instead of the embed?

[giza.livejournal.com]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MvvxndPDTk

[murakozi.livejournal.com]

Thermite + Ice = big steamy kaboom

I can't find any footage of it online anywhere, but films of big areas of ice being cleared with thermite back when the DEWS and such were being built up in the arctic are pretty neat to see.

On another note, I always feel sorely tempted to pull the pin when I see thermite equipped safes while doing work-related things.

[mach.livejournal.com]

I think that may have been dry ice. It looked/acted like I would expect such to. Also, dry ice will slow/cool thermite much better than regular ice because of the co2.

[wildw0lf.livejournal.com]

I didn't expect the explosion sound. Was that really from the ice just breaking apart because of the extreme change in heat?