"Tim Williams" wrote in message
...
"Norm Dresner" wrote in message
...
each half flies off with over 28 thousand pounds of
force behind it -- that's 85 psi x 339 square inches

But what of the force vectors pointed around the rim? The only forces
that
matter are directed parallel to the travel, in other words, the effective
area is ALWAYS a circle of the inner diameter.

Still 254 square inches, but I wanted to correct you...

Tim


Tim. Worst case, assume my calculations are off by a factor of 10 (very,
very unlikely). That's still 2,800 pounds of force propelling the
fragments. That'd make quite a dent in your chest, wouldn't it?

Norm