Unit of explosives?

Question

I need to write something about explosives in a story. I want to write that I need a big explosive, but I instead fancy using some unit like kgs. Can you tell me a unit of normal bomb, such as 5 kgs or 100 kgs...

Thanks

Answer 1

You often hear explsions rated in "tons of TNT". Especially for nuclear weapons but also for other explosions. The definition for this is 1 ton of TNT = 10^9 calories or 4.2*10^9 joule. In terms of energy per pound, that's about 2000 BTU/lb (4.6 kJ/gm) which is typical for high explosives. Interestingly, ordinary fuels like natural gas, propane and gasoline contain about 10 times as much energy per pound as high explosives.

Answer 2

How big an explosion. A single stick of dynamite can cause a decent sized explosion.

Answer 3

I think in terms of kilo-tons of TNT. KaBOOOOOM!