Re: David Drake's WideWorld of Weapons
George Herbert 02 Aug 2021 01:01 UTC
Batteries today are around 1/10 of the energy density of explosives. Joule is watt-second; a watt-hour is 3,600 joules, and good batteries are 150 wh/kg now, or around 540,000 joules (540 kilojoules) though some batteries are passing 300 wh/kg. Supercapacitors are less energy dense.
TNT is canonically 4.18 megajoules per kilogram.
Not that you can’t detonate things with electric pulses, but you need a larger energy bank than the equivalent high explosive. That may still work under some circumstances, and you may be able to do the electrothermal-chemical reaction trick and boost it.
-George
Sent from my iPhone