Super heated ice cube exlodes

[Roland Jacques]

I just saw a episode of Myth Busters where they put Thermite (I think its basically some kind of flammable mixture including magnesium shaving or powder that get over 2000 F hot) in a container on top of some large cubes of ice. When they ignited the thermite it interacted with the ice and caused a major explosion. One theory is the hydrogen in the frozen H2O is responsible for the explosion. Any thoughts on this?

heres a revised angle to better see what they did

http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/mythbusters-thermite-vs-ice-angle-2.html

http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/mythbusters-thermite-vs-ice-angle-5.html

[Roland Jacques]

http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/mythbusters-thermite-vs-ice-high-speed.html

http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/mythbusters-thermite-vs-ice-angle-1.html

http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/mythbusters-thermite-vs-ice-angle-6.html

[Philldpapill]

One theory about this, is that the SUPER intense heat of the thermite ignition actually causes the ice to sublimate, causing rapid expansion(an explosion). I doubt there are any chemical or nuclear phenomena going on since the temperature of thermite isn't "that" hot.

[Roland Jacques]

Thanks Phil. Sublimate was my first thought also. But I'm not to sure that's it (at least maybe not by itself). I can see how the pressure would crack the ice but without a large volume of gas expanding fast. It just dose not seem it would send pieces of ice flying that far. But really i dont know.


I was also thinking about "Plasma Arc" that some folks use to burn water directly. It seems that the same type of arc could be happening with the thermite that may cause these explosions. I understand very little about Plasma arc's burning H2O .

[Roland Jacques]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnHR4cMXiyM

I found this 7 minute mythbuster episode