Name: 沒人知道爆炸原理？！ (目前還不知道) (No-one knows how explosions work (yet))
Uploaded: 2026-01-17T17:02:20.000Z
Duration: 6 min 10 s

I thought that scientists understood how explosions work.

我以為科學家們都懂爆炸是怎麼回事。

Now we're not going to see big orange fireballs going up into the sky.

現在我們不會看到巨大的橘色火球衝上天了。

I've done that before, I've filmed with a pyrotechnician.

我以前做過，我跟一位煙火技師拍過。

We added a load of fuel to make the blast look like a Hollywood explosion.

我們加了很多燃料，讓爆炸看起來像好萊塢式爆炸。

Besides, these days Hollywood and scientists can simulate those sort of effects near perfectly in a computer.

而且，現在好萊塢和科學家可以在電腦裡近乎完美地模擬那種效果。

There are industry standard ways of predicting blast waves.

有行業標準的方法可以預測衝擊波。

They are very accurate once you're about half a metre away and there's clear air in between, which is good enough for most people because let's face it, if you're 5cm away from an explosion, you've probably got bigger problems.

一旦你離爆炸點大概半公尺遠，中間空氣又很清晰，它們就非常準確了，對大多數人來說已經夠用了，因為說實話，如果你離爆炸點只有 5 公分，你可能會有更大的麻煩。

But it turns out that's big picture stuff.

但結果發現那是宏觀層面的東西。

Right at the start in the detonation, in the first few instants of an explosion, as all that energy is released, that's where the simulations break down.

在爆轟的起始階段，爆炸剛發生的那瞬間，當所有能量釋放出來時，模擬就開始失效了。

And solving that problem could save lives.

而解決這個問題，就能拯救生命。

This bleak old World War II munitions site is now a university test laboratory and the research is close up.

這個破舊的二次世界大戰彈藥庫，現在是大學的實驗室，研究就在近距離進行。

Explosions are very difficult to measure.

We need something that's going to be rugged and strong enough to survive an explosion.

我們需要一個堅固耐用的裝置，足以承受爆炸。

But we also need something that's sensitive enough to measure things that are changing over millimetre length scales and sub microsecond time scales.

但我們也需要一個足夠靈敏的裝置，來測量在公釐級長度尺度和微秒級時間尺度上變化的事物。

The rig that we're going to be using today is called mace, which stands for Mechanisms and Characterisation of Explosions.

我們今天要使用的裝置叫做 Mace，它的意思是「爆炸機理與特徵分析」。

It's a bit of world leading kit where we can directly measure much closer than anybody worldwide can do gigapascals worth of pressures.

這是一套世界頂尖設備，讓我們能直接測量到比全世界任何地方都更近距離的吉帕斯卡級壓力。

And that's a very, very complicated situation which we can't necessarily model or predict currently.

這是一個非常、非常複雜的情況，我們目前無法準確地模型化或預測。

And we're going to use some high speed video cameras to film what's going on as well.

我們也會使用一些高速攝影機來拍攝現場情況。

If you hit a metal bar the right way, it'll make a ringing sound, basically a musical note.

如果你以正確的方式敲擊金屬棒，它會發出鈴響聲，基本上就是一個音符。

That ringing is made by the bar itself vibrating as the force from that initial hit bounces back and forth within the metal.

這個鈴響聲是由金屬棒本身振動產生的，因為最初撞擊的力量會在金屬內部來回反彈。

And the pitch of that note is really easy to measure.

而這個音符的音調其實很容易測量。

The work the researchers are doing here is much more technical and much more precise, but

研究人員在這裡所做的工作更加技術化、更加精確，但是

It's based on theory by a British physicist called Bertram Hopkinson 109 years ago.

這是基於一位英國物理學家 Bertram Hopkinson 在 109 年前提出的理論。

And it's only now that the technology is catching up, where we can affix very, very small strain gauges and we've got data acquisition systems that can sample at the required rates and required frequencies.

直到現在，技術才跟上來，讓我們能夠固定非常非常小的應變規，並且我們有了能夠以所需速率和所需頻率採樣的數據採集系統。

The strain gauge is a tiny dot that we mount on the outside of our Hopkinson pressure bars.

應變規是我們安裝在 Hopkinson 壓力棒外部的一個小點。

Solid steel, 1 meter long, 4 millimeter diameter.

實心鋼材，長一公尺，直徑四毫米。

And we fix this strain gauge 40 millimeters from the loaded face of the bar.

我們將應變規固定在金屬棒載入面下方四十毫米處。

我們以每秒五百萬次的速度採樣。

We're going to set the explosive a little bit further away from the surface and so hopefully we can see that the fireball and the detonation products start to expand.

我們會將炸藥設置在離表面稍遠一點的地方，這樣我們就能看到火球和爆炸產物開始膨脹。

That's going to set up a blast wave that's going to propagate through the bar as a stress wave.

這將產生一股衝擊波，以應力波的形式傳播通過金屬棒。

So the strain gauge records a change in voltage.

是以，應變規會記錄電壓的變化。

We can work out stress, which we can work out the pressure and the load on the end of the bar.

我們可以計算出應力，進而計算出壓力以及金屬棒末端的負載。

From there's a whacking great big steel plate that just acts as a shield and just deflects everything away.

接著是一個巨大的鋼板，它只起到保護罩的作用，將所有東西偏轉開來。

So the pressure bars trap that pressure and send it downwards.

所以壓力棒會捕捉壓力並將其向下傳遞。

And then the arrangement of the mace rig that we're building towards is thin.

然後我們正在建造的 mace rig 的配置是細長的。

Today we've just got one just to focus on what's happening right in the most severe part.

今天我們只聚焦一個點，看看最嚴重的部分發生了什麼事。

So I asked the researchers, what's the use for this?

所以我問研究人員，這個有什麼用？

Their first answer was, well, for science, and that's fair enough.

他們第一個答案是，嗯，為了科學，這也說得過去。

But there are practical applications to start with.

If this works, building things that resist explosions will become a lot easier and cheaper.

如果這成功了，建造抵抗爆炸的建築會變得更輕鬆、更便宜。

In the 80s and the 90s, the big challenge was big truck bombs with tons of explosives.

在 80 年代和 90 年代，最大的挑戰是裝載數噸炸藥的大型卡車炸彈。

Nowadays, explosive attacks are much more targeted.

現今，爆炸攻擊的目標性更強。

They tend to be smaller devices and as a result they're located closer to the thing that they want to damage.

它們通常是較小的裝置，是以會放置在靠近它們想破壞的目標。

So that's why we've looked in this very extreme near field setting.

這就是為什麼我們關注這個極端近場的設定。

We're going to be doing some tests today.

With 100 grams of high explosive, it's around about tennis ball sized.

使用 100 克高爆炸藥，大約是網球大小。

There are a lot of secondary reactions that go on.

It takes a while to develop, at least on our timescales.

這需要一些時間來發展，至少在我們的時間尺度上。

And there are ongoing chemical reactions.

And that offers up the really interesting prospect of can we do something that's going to mitigate them or even turn them off?

這就帶來了一個非常有趣的展望：我們能否做些什麼來減輕或甚至關閉它們？

Can we surround explosives in a particular type of material to manage those reactions?

我們能否用某種特定材料包圍炸藥來管理這些反應？

Bomb proof luggage containers or storage containers on transport, that's a potential thing that could be done with this research.

防爆行李箱或運輸儲存容器，這可能是這項研究可以實現的潛在應用。

If we can understand those first instances of an explosion, then maybe we can help keep it under control.

如果我們能理解爆炸的最初階段，或許就能幫助控制它。

After all, this munition site is built to do that.

畢竟，這個彈藥庫就是為此而建的。

It was designed to contain anything that goes wrong by brute force, just using huge amounts of earth and concrete bunkers.

它是透過大量土石和混凝土掩體，硬碰硬來防止任何意外發生的。

So can that be done with less materials and less cost?

那我們能不能用比較少的材料和成本來達成這點呢？

We're about to take just one step towards finding out.

我們即將朝著找出答案邁出一步。

We've never been able to observe these features before, so we kind of don't know what we don't know.

我們以前從來沒辦法觀察到這些特徵，所以我們不太確定自己不知道什麼。

That's what the group looks at, uncovering what we don't know about explosions yet.

這就是這個團隊在做的，揭開我們對爆炸還不知道的祕密。

So this is filmed at about a quarter of a million frames per second.

這段影片是以大約每秒二十五萬幀的速度拍攝的。

as it goes back up, see it reigniting, all that hot gas is getting churned back up.

當它往上彈時，看到它重新點燃，所有那些熱氣都被攪拌上來。

It's mixing with the oxygen that's giving it that secondary kick that we see at these sorts of scale distances.

它和氧氣混合，這給了它我們在這種規模距離上看到的二次推力。

It's continually pushing the end of that bar and it's sending that information down because it's not one hit, it's a push that.

它不斷地推動那根金屬棒的末端，並將訊息傳遞下去，因為它不是一次撞擊，而是推動。

But you're recording that so quickly that.

但你記錄的速度非常快，所以。

That what you're actually getting is a push.