Talk:Detonating cord

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Higher-yield detonating cord can be used to cut down small trees; one complete wrap per foot diameter is a rough starting point.

I have cut down trees with detcord. Unless "higher yield" means about as thick as a sausage, this is far too little. Cutting trees with detcord is very uneconomical and time consuming compared to using bulk explosives or even a chainsaw.

 I have personally used 3 wraps of detonation cord to cut down a tree. the military also uses this method to block roads with trees.

I have personally witnessed detcord being used to clear old pilings. The cord was about 3/8 to 1/2 inch in diameter, and a couple feet long, electrically detonated. The diver placed the cord, climbed out (to avoid shock wave injury) and triggered it. There was a sharp crack and a very fast circular shockwave was visible on the water surface. Boats docked nearby were undamaged, and fish kill was minor. I believe it may have required multiple shots to sever a piling.

Could some of these uses actually be refering to some other form of line charge, such as Royal Ordnance Blade(Fowler, Will. Greenhill Military Manuals: Arms and Equipmet of Special Forces. Greenhill Books, London. 1996 pg 60-61). This is a line charge designed to cut through the material it is attached to. BTW, what is the prefered citiation format here on Wiki? Nkuzmik 02:41, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I am also extremely doubtful about some of the "unconventional uses" listed:

Detonating cord has been reported to have occasionally been used during wartime to restrain prisoners if no handcuffs were available; the cord was first demonstrated on a tree or other object, then tied to the prisoners.

Ah, the weaselly "reported to". Can anyone find a cite for this? Quite apart from probably being a war crime, it doesn't make much sense; anyone possessing significant amounts of detcord is very likely to also have quite a bit of tape even if they have no cord or rope; and a prisoner with explosives attached is far more likely to assume the worst and try something desperate. And if they do escape you've already provided them with a weapon! (Also you don't generally use handcuffs to secure prisoners of war; the system will evacuate them to the rear and you'll never see your $30 handcuffs again.)

I didn't write this one but have heard similar applications.

Sorry, I don't want to sound rude but "reported to" and "heard of" are not a sufficient standard for an encyclopedia. This sounds to me like a bunkhouse yarn that turned into a wild rumour, and I will remove it unless someone can find a cite. Securiger 09:11, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Not sure who's argument I'm helping, but I saw det cord used for prisoner restraint in an old issue of Marvel Comics' Punisher. I can't recall the issue number but I still have it around someplace. If you really want, I can look for it. Nkuzmik 02:41, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I have a Marvel Comic that shows a guy named superman that can fly in a red cape.75.20.202.214 19:14, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

It has been used to clear brush to effectively stop the progression of forest fires.

Again, cite please. A firebreak needs to be an absolute minimum of 4 m wide to stop a fire in light grassland and light wind when the line is continuously manned. It would take an enormous amount of detcord to blow a firebreak that size—and that's a minimum, as soon as you get high winds even a 40 m break needs continuous manning. The normal process is to use a grader or bulldozer (or a plough, in grassland) to cut two strips 3 to 4m wide about 40 to 100m apart, then controlled backburn the land between the two strips, preferably at night if time permits. That gives you a 40 ~ 100 m wide break cheaply, safely, at about 6 km/h (multiplied by the number of graders available.)

US Patent number 4,102,428 Seismic Cord - This cord has a layer of flame retardant surrounding the explosive core. Either 4 or 7 strands are cabled together to provide sufficent energy. 100 feet of the cord is packed into a backpack configuration.

I just read this patent at http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/srchnum.htm (you need to type the number in yourself, the search link expands to something way too long to cut-and-paste), and it isn't for making firebreaks, it's for seismic prospecting. The flame retardant coating is so it doesn't start fires. But we could add seismic prospecting to the list! Securiger 09:11, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The "Fireline" product consisted of 4 or 7 strands of the 200 Seismic cord cabled together. The flame retardant does prevent initiation of additional fires. This product worked well but has been replaced by water gel explosives.

It has also been used for environmental purposes to remove nonindigenous species of fish from bodies of water, the shock wave being lethal to the non-native species.

Well that's extraordinary. Why are the non-native species more vulnerable? What if the native fish are close to the cord while the non-native fish are hiding on the bottom? Why would detcord be more useful here than a simple charge? I'm not saying this is untrue but again a cite would be useful, as well as some explanation as to how it works.

I typed incorrectly, the system kills everything then they restock the lake.

Oh. Evidently then any explosive could be used. Securiger 09:11, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Yes any explosive charge will kill fish. The application using cord was novel in that the matrix of cord minimized the total amount of explosive by dispersing the energy more efficiently.

Det cord is commonly used to increase the production of water and petroleum wells.

All oil well shooting I've heard of uses bulk HE, compressed fuel/oxygen mixes, or specialised shaped charges. Is it claimed here that detcord is used to downlink to the charge (in which case it is not really a separate "unusual use") or as the charge--in which case: cite?

The det cord is typically wrapped around a mandrel lowered down the well and detonated.

>>The application listed above, is actually somewhat correct. If while drilling an oilwell, your drill pipe becomes stuck in mud/sand, you can apply a small amount of reverse torque to your drill string, and detonate a string of det-cord wrapped around a small mandrel. This shocks the tool joint that you want to seperate, and will allow you to unscrew your drill string at a predetermined location above the free point( point at which the drill pipe is stuck) and you can remove your drill string, and later run fishing tools into the well. This application is called a string shot. -William Gray CPCI Corpus Christi <<

Additional uses for det cord have been: tenderizing meat,

You have to be kidding!? Cite?

Please see: http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archive/jun98/hydr0698.htm

There are also several articles about "hydrodyne" using explosives to tenderize meat.

That link 404's for me. Did you get it all when you copied it? However by googling on "Hydrodyne" and "meat", I found enough to see that the basic point is true; explosives are being used to tenderise meat, something that definitely warrants an article! But none of the references I found referred to det cord (adding any of the common synonyms reduced my search to 0 hits), and one (admittedly not very well referenced) page said four ounces of C4. Securiger 09:11, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

As you might imagine the details of a proprietary process usually aren't totally exposed for everyone. There has been a plethora of devices used in the meat tenderizing process, soundwaves from all sources, electric, pneumatic, as well as explosives. Det cord has been amongst them.

clearing landmines,

If you only mean connecting multiple clearance charges together, this doesn't really count as a separate usage. If you mean using the detcord as the clearance charge: cite? Securiger 15:45, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Please see: http://www.lshd.com/client/ebad/defense/small_projected_line_charge.php

This is a det cord only mine clearing system.

I'm familiar with projected line charges. While line charges are a flexible linear explosive charge as detcord is, they aren't considered to be a type of detcord; even the lightest generally have much heavier charges per length. We could make a comment to the effect that above the heaviest end of the detcord spectrum you get line charges instead. Securiger 09:11, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

We are getting into semantics here. There is no industry threshold that product size crosses to become det cord or line charge. However I do appreciate your motivation for accuracy.

Detcord CAN be used for tenderising meat, it was a general explosives excercise, something about the shockwaves themselves doing the tenderising.

   "It has been used to clear brush to effectively stop the progression of forest fires."

cite: "Glossary of Wildland Fire Terminology" published by the National Wildfire Coordinating Group http://www.nwcg.gov/pms/pubs/glossary/F.htm#Fire%20Regime "Fireline Explosives (FLE): Specially developed coils containing explosive powder that are detonated to create a fireline through ground fuels."

The above sounds like a "specially developed" system. I doubt that "purchasing some detcord" counts as "specially developing" something.

[edit] Unconventional?

What's the judge of unconventional? The typical use for an explosive is to ... well, blow things up, but there are some pretty inventive uses, I'll admit. But what makes using it to, say, carve rock unconventional? You'd think that'd be almost tailor-made for the task.IL-Kuma 04:00, 15 October 2007 (UTC)