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[silhouette]

"The spinning fluffy wambler flies through the air shrieking MEEEEEEEEEEP!"

Feep.  Feep "FEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!"

OH GOD ITS BACK.
ITS BACK!

[Ze Spy]

drinking achohol DO explode in real life when contacted with burning fire(no , not those matchsticks , it has to be burning something before it contacts)

anyway , lets not derail this thread with real life

still , molotov cocktails are still cool , do we increase the damage done by the fire from a molotov so a random gobo can't just get set on fire and run into your fortress , setting random dwarfs on fire?

[silhouette]

do we increase the damage done by the fire from a molotov so a random gobo can't just get set on fire and run into your fortress , setting random dwarfs on fire?

but thats half the fun!

[Cthulhu]

NAAAARGGH

alcohol does not explode

people, please stop posting about it as if it does

Human alcohol doesn't explode.  Dwarven beer is 120% alcohol and 30% explosion.

[Saronsen]

Ever get a strong liquor, get a mouthful, and then blow it out over a lighter? Flamethrower.

Alcohol is very flammable if it has enough alcohol content.

I've seen Moonshine explode, by the way.

[lucusLoC]

alcohol *vapors* explode, liquid alcohol does not. same for gasoline. you have to get the right fuel/oxidizer ratio to get stuff to explode. mixing combustibles with air is a good way to do that.

[Jacob/Lee]

NAAAARGGH

alcohol does not explode

people, please stop posting about it as if it does

If I'm reading this right, he's complaining about people wanting alcohol to explode when burning alcohol, in real life, doesn't.

Your wrong, alchohol does catch on fire in real life, those circus performers who breath fire?They drank before blowing and creating a stream of fire.Molotovs, full of alchohol.

[xdarkcodex]

NAAAARGGH

alcohol does not explode

people, please stop posting about it as if it does

If I'm reading this right, he's complaining about people wanting alcohol to explode when burning alcohol, in real life, doesn't.

Your wrong, alchohol does catch on fire in real life, those circus performers who breath fire?They drank before blowing and creating a stream of fire.Molotovs, full of alchohol.

Yer but it doesn't explode.

[Saronsen]

Okay, imagine that you have moonshine. Its fumes are just as powerful as Gasoline. Pour that moonshine on the bottom of a sealed room, and let the fumes fill it. While there is still a fair amount of oxygen in there, let there be a spark.

It will, if not burn so rapidly, it causes an explosion-like action, which will rock the room, it'll explode.

Gasoline does the same thing.

[G-Flex]

molotov cocktails are Fun too. OMG, wouldn't that be an awesome addition to DF! Makes COMPLETE sense for a dwarf party gone out of control.

Except in real life, you make them from gasoline. Alcohol is not a very easy thing to weaponize and you don't have much reason to.

Okay, imagine that you have moonshine. Its fumes are just as powerful as Gasoline. Pour that moonshine on the bottom of a sealed room, and let the fumes fill it. While there is still a fair amount of oxygen in there, let there be a spark.

It will, if not burn so rapidly, it causes an explosion-like action, which will rock the room, it'll explode.

Gasoline does the same thing.

This is what I'm talking about. Alcohol simply does not burn as hot as gasoline. Sure, if you get the right mixture of ANY flammable gas with oxygen, it'll burn incredibly quickly, but that doesn't make it useful or even practical to do.

[Saronsen]

Gasoline is efficient and 'clean'.

Moonshine burns just as well as gasoline, but it's dirty and will gunk up engines. You can run Tanks, like the M1A1 off of alcohol too. It's just less efficient.

But you're right, it isn't practical to use it for many things. But, if things like crude oil appear in the game, you have yourself some firebombs waiting to happen.

[lucusLoC]

most alcohols do not have the same energy density as gasoline. you need to burn more of them to get the same effect. on the other hand a lot of alcohols do burn very hot, because the are generally smaller and split faster than other fuels.

i have no idea where regular drinking alcohol (ethanol) falls into that range though. i would imagine not very high up.

[G-Flex]

most alcohols do not have the same energy density as gasoline. you need to burn more of them to get the same effect. on the other hand a lot of alcohols do burn very hot, because the are generally smaller and split faster than other fuels.

This doesn't make any sense to me: What does "split faster" mean?

Also, burning alcohol always produces the same heat per unit of mass of ethanol. There's no way to get any alcohol to burn as hot as gasoline does. Its heat of combustion (by mass) is only about 60% that of ethanol, and is slightly lower than that of methane as well. There are also probably other factors to consider, of course.

Now, when you mix this with water (which is probably what you're referring to), you have other issues. The water prevents the alcohol from combusting in the first place (by absorbing heat and smothering the ethanol from the oxygen), then absorbs some of the heat from the combustion simply to raise its temperature, and absorbs more heat in order to evaporate.

[lucusLoC]

alcohols burn faster, the molecules split and release their energy faster. gasoline has a higher energy density, and so is capable of releasing more energy per unit volume, just not as fast. also i should have clarified that as burn hotter in open air, since i assumed that is what we are talking about. and different types of alcohol have different energy densities.

i think my previous post was unclear as to which one i meant had more total energy. . .

[G-Flex]

No gasoline is going to have a heat of combustion even close to that of ethanol. Gasoline doesn't vary that much; a little, but not that much.


As far as releasing energy faster, I'm not sure how you mean; can you provide a source for the molecules "splitting faster"? The biggest factors I can think of that concern combustion rate would be temperature (obviously), and the fuel/vapor mixture composition.

and different types of alcohol have different energy densities.

I still don't know what this is suposed to mean.

Ethanol has the same heat of combustion all of the time, because ethanol is ethanol. If you want to talk about other alcohols, that's fine, but only ethanol is relevant here.

If you want to talk about alcoholic beverages, then yeah, they'll all burn (or not) differently, but using the term "energy densities" is a bit weird. The ethanol content will release the exact same amount of heat as any other similar quantity of energy; it'll just be harder to get at and some of it will be wasted.