The Cryo Cannon

One of the strangest things i ever found on the internet i have no way of proving it even exist because there's no trace of the link anywhere anymore. I know it sounds far fetched and maybe even crazy but 3 months ago i found a link talking about a new military weapons project in which they are trying to concentrate liquid nitrogen into a bomb so that instead of a fiery explosion it causes an icy explosion which would theoretically freeze everything in the bombs radius. The link also spoke of some type of element or compound that would expand and intensify the effects of the nitrogen. If anyone knows anything about this please let me know

Not sure but it sounds like something Mr.Freeze would use against metropolis.

a reply to: rebellion7

I fail to see how liquid nitrogen could be deployed explosively. It is one of the most volatile substances around, and boils at −195.79 °C. This means that at room temperature, it is a gas, rather than a liquid.

I would have thought that detonation which would be able to spread the stuff over a wide enough area to flash freeze the entire area, would have to be pretty hot, and although it would be of a very short duration, it would be enough to potentially change the state of the liquid nitrogen, beyond its ability to retain its ability to rapidly freeze the target area.

a reply to: TrueBrit

I found out what you are saying after find my research but that's why i believe they're experimenting with elements and different compounds to make it work. Like i said it sounds far fetched even to me but i guys that's what they said about going to the moon lol i can understand the usefulness of the weapon tho, instead of blowing up a nuclear facility we could just freeze it

a reply to: highfromphoenix

Gotham City, dude. Gotham City. Batman villain.

Sounds interesting though... But how is it going to do anything explosively?

a reply to: seagull

If we've learned anything from science it's that the only limitations are the ones we make. I mean we have a weaponized laser that reaches into outer space

originally posted by: TrueBrit
a reply to: rebellion7

I fail to see how liquid nitrogen could be deployed explosively. It is one of the most volatile substances around, and boils at −195.79 °C. This means that at room temperature, it is a gas, rather than a liquid.

I would have thought that detonation which would be able to spread the stuff over a wide enough area to flash freeze the entire area, would have to be pretty hot, and although it would be of a very short duration, it would be enough to potentially change the state of the liquid nitrogen, beyond its ability to retain its ability to rapidly freeze the target area.

To keep nitrogen liquid you have to keep it cold and inside a pressurized vessel in order to keep the internal gas pressure down. Every element has its evaporation or boiling point temperature where it will change state from liquid to gas. Even when the mean temperature is above this level, it's still possible to keep the contents in a liquid state through the use of a sealed container. But there's still another temperature point where even the gas pressure would exceed the strength of the container, and then you would get explosive decompression. But as soon as the gas is depressurized, it suddenly loses temperature.

So you need to keep the Nitrogen under pressure, let the excess heat escape, then release the Nitrogen under controlled circumstances like a set of sprinkler nozzles. Once the Nitrogen escapes a nozzle, the sudden depressurization would cause it to lose temperature. Instant Mr Freeze.

You could have a freeze-thrower rather than a flame-thrower...

a reply to: TrueBrit

even if it was, it would have to be so concentrated that upon explosion the freeze radius would expand exponentially........

I dont see how this would be beneficial .....

Most cannons are meant to cause massive collateral damage, i dont feel freezing would do the job

What say you

a reply to: ManBehindTheMask

Well, suddenly freezing a human is likely to cause massive disruption to their cellular matrices, as well as cold burns, and indeed the near instantaneous cessation of blood flow to any affected region of the body. Also, human tissue is mostly water, and so expansion of that water would cause massive internal damage if the hit was solid.

Vehicles would suffer cold related metal fatigue in short order, and if they were under acceleration when hit with the blast, could suffer a catastrophic failure of the axles, steering rack, hydraulic systems, and so on. Things like bunkers and what not would probably be just fine, but the people manning them would have their lung lining frozen in moments, tracheas would freeze and the sudden temperature change would send anyone not suffering directly from cold burns into a rapid hyper, or hypothermic shock, depending on the duration of the cooling effect. Fast cooling, short duration would result in hyperthermic shock, because of the sudden drop, then rise in temperature. Fast cooling long duration effects would simply see people die of the cold, even if they were not directly touched by the actual chemical, because the surrounding area would have been cooled so deeply.

Much infrastructure could be saved, but it's hardly a low collateral option, if we are talking about human lives.

I still cannot for a moment believe, that an explosive could be used to propel liquid nitrogen in its most damaging form, over any particular area without causing the gas to escape, rather than remain liquid and fall on the target.

a reply to: stormcell

Oh, that would work just fine.

But an explosive shell with liquid nitrogen inside it would not function, that's my point.

a reply to: ManBehindTheMask

The value of it is instead of destroying facilities and whatever's inside them we could freeze and sees what our enemies are up to i guess

a reply to: TrueBrit

I know what to use, especially if you want a water surface explosion to breach a hull, but it's against the TC to explain the components and the method.

Cheers - Dave

a reply to: bobs_uruncle

So your saying what they're trying to do is possible to achieve

a reply to: rebellion7

No, but if one wanted to make an explosive device that would cryogenically cause serious metal fatigue followed by an explosion and fire, I can do that and use water as the catalyst for the incendiary.

Cheers - Dave

a reply to: bobs_uruncle

Ok ok i get what your saying

Thinking back many years to my secondary school chemistry classes I remember that there are two basic reactions, exothermic, which give off heat and endothermic, which absorb heat. Example of an exothermic reaction would be thermite, endothermic reactions would be found in any refrigerator. My point is that it doesn't have to be a cold substance in the bomb, just a reaction capable of sucking the heat out of an area. Kind of like cold version of a fuel air bomb.

Don't press me any further on this, I'm at the limits of my scientific knowledge and I'm only making a guess. I'm going for a lie down now.

Try calculating the amount of energy involved with converting a reasonable volume of liquid nitrogen to gas with an end point temperature of 0C.

Then estimate the number of joules involved with dropping, say, a 25 degree C volume to 0C. Include buildings, soil with a reasonable water content, air, people, etc.

See how those two quantities balance.

You're going to find that the "freeze-a-boom" isn't going to do a lot.

The big issue isn't in spreading the LN around, it's that it doesn't have that much specific heat. And that's all you have to work with. Magic catalysts, "elements", whatever, what you have to work with is the specific heat of that volume of liquid nitrogen. No hand waving will get you more. You can optimize it, but you can't do better than that, no matter what mystic additives you put in.

a reply to: Bedlam

Hey listen i don't even think the world needs another type of bombs to be honest. But like i always don't doubt a mad scientist and the US has a few so who knows what we already have built and ready you know

a reply to: rebellion7

Liquid nitrogen isn't going to get the job done. Unless your effective volume is maybe no more than 10x the volume of LN you're working with.

I know it's a movie meme. But a bit of physics puts the quietus to it.

a reply to: Bedlam

It actually has allot of truth behind it, like i said they're already working on it. In the end they may not actually use the LN but from what i had read they're definitely looking into ways to make it work