What size nuclear bomb was force of impact on trade centers?

Question

off the cuff I'd say at least and 100 kiloton. Has anyone stopped to figure it out? And after watching it over again I think it amasing they stood as long as they did after getting hit. Does anyone else agree with me?

according to news the planes weighed 100 tons and they were traveling at 543 Kmh

Answer 1

The question was on the force of impact, not the energy released from the burning fuel. The maximum takeoff weight of a 747-300 is 374,850 kg. Assuming a speed of 550 mph, or about 245 m/s, and using the formula e = (1/2)mv^2, we can obtain an energy of 1.1325 x 10^10 joules. One ton of TNT is 4,184 x 10^9 joules. Thus the maximum "yield" of a 747 is about 2.7 tons (not kilotons) of TNT.

If you look at the fuel, a 747-300 can carry 54,750 gallons. Estimating at 8 lbs to the gallon, that means that it carries 219 tons of fuel. Is 219 tons of jet fuel equal to a hundred kilotons of TNT? Nope. One pound of jet fuel has 18,600 BTUs of energy, so the entire fuel load has the energy of 8.1 x 10^9 BTUs. One ton of TNT has the energy of 3.9 x 10^6 BTUs. So, if all the fuel could be exploded at once, it would equal about 2 kilotons of TNT. Note, however, that jet fuel doesn't explode.

Answer 2

While I have no idea what the force of a plane crashing into a building is, I highly doubt that it would be even nearly that much.

Nuclear explosions are measured in kilotons based off of an equivilent detonation of TNT. In other words, they took a ton of TNT, set it off, and used that as a base measurement. A kiloton is one /thousand/ tons of TNT. You're suggesting that two planes exploded with the equivilant force of 100 thousand TONS of TNT. They couldn't load that much TNT onto a thousand planes. Like I said, I don't know how much force those planes actually had, but if it's even measurable in kilotons, I would be surprised.

Answer 3

A 747 jet has a maximum fuel capacity of 57285 gallons.

Some where in my distant memory I learned the fact that 1 gallon of gasoline has the energy of 3 sticks of TNT.

So, if we round down to 55,000 gallons, that would be 165,000 sticks of TNT. How much does a stick weigh?

If it was a one pound per stick, and 2000 lbs per ton it would be about 82 kilotons. So you probably are in the ballpark.

(A very sad waste of human potential in total.)

Answer 4

To much to calculate with unknown date.

speed,angle,temp,weight of nuke?

Height,weight,dimensions,matericals of building?

However if you are just saying how much nuclear power to drop the towers than we still need tower date but rough estimated 15 kiloton which is still a lot i would guess realistic maybe 5-10.