Pacific Rim: Striker Eureka’s Self Destruction Calc

[1000TonsofFun]

In the first Pacific Rim movie, Striker Eureka self destructs, causing a massive air pocket to be opened in the ocean for a few seconds.

The official novelisation states that the blast wave breached the ocean surface (note: the Pacific Rim novelisation is stated to be canon to the franchise unless contradicted. This statement doesn’t seem to contradict what’s seen in the film so I’d imagine it can be used)

We appear to have 4 accepted calculations for this feat.

Pacific Rim - Striker Eureka's self destruction - 121 Megatons of TNT (Mountain level) to 1,092.1997 Megatons of TNT (Large Mountain level) (currently accepted as 1,092.1997 Megatons of TNT)

Pacific Rim - Slattern Tanks a Nuke Recalc - 201.966665072 Kilotons of TNT (Large Town level) to 58.470062141491396801 Megatons of TNT (City level+) (currently accepted as 58.470062141491396801 Megatons of TNT)

Striker Eureka's Self-Destruction - 2.464 Gigatons of TNT (Large Mountain level) (currently accepted as 1.232 Gigatons of TNT as the majority of the blast was non nuclear as accepted here)

Striker Eureka Self Destruction (REDO) - 59.472079349904404921 Gigatons of TNT (Island level+) to 913.28146759 Gigatons of TNT (Large Island level+) (currently accepted at 59.472079349904404921 Gigatons of TNT)

Which of these would be best to use?

 

[Emerald]

This nuke has a canonical yield of 1.2 Megatons

 

[1000TonsofFun]

This nuke has a canonical yield of 1.2 Megatons

The nuke does yes, but as discussed in this thread, majority of the energy likely came from Striker’s own power core.

 

[SeijiSetto]

i'll probably take a look at this later

 

[SeijiSetto]

Right, so.

First one uses the diameter as the radius but that's an easy-to-make mistake, iunno how reliable that nuke calculator is personally but I haven't looked into the math it's using so whatever.
KE should be using 1/12 factor like our cloud calcs do, because that accounts for the fact that not all the water travels the same distance (the water closer to where the edge of the explosion is barely has to move compared to the water at the center of the explosion).

Second one's pixel scaling gets almost the exact same values as the first one, I see no real problems there.
I got a value about 14% different for spherical cap volume, dunno what happened there.
Same thing to say about KE, (1/12)mv^2 because omnidirectional dispersion.
I don't 100% understand the usage of hydrostatic pressure? But I also kinda do, it ends up being pressure * volume (or pressure * area, which is force, then multiplied by length/displacement, which gives you energy and is basically how all our frag/v.frag/pulv stuff works so it ends up being similar)

Third one - not so sure about the seemingly-out-of-nowhere 1.5x radius assumption, it's unfounded. If you can't guess how much further it extended I'd just only use the visible radius and consider it a lowball, personally.
The formula for underwater explosions checks out, though. I re-derived it from xkcd's formula and got one that gives the same value (albeit mine looks a lot neater i think), where R is in meters and p is in Pascals, and the result is in Joules.

Finally, for the fourth, I think the use of the ocean depth at that point is fine. It's explicitly mentioned the blast wave reached the surface and all the calc is doing is assuming that the explosion expanded in the same shape, which is normal. I'm honestly partial to the high-end of that one because of the fact that it accounts for the water pressure and the depth it happened at.

I don't think any of the clips show whether the machine tanking it actually survived (cut off the instant it hits), so I'd like to see that before I say anything about whether the tanking part is viable or not.

 

[1000TonsofFun]

Right, so.

First one uses the diameter as the radius but that's an easy-to-make mistake, iunno how reliable that nuke calculator is personally but I haven't looked into the math it's using so whatever.
KE should be using 1/12 factor like our cloud calcs do, because that accounts for the fact that not all the water travels the same distance (the water closer to where the edge of the explosion is barely has to move compared to the water at the center of the explosion).

Second one's pixel scaling gets almost the exact same values as the first one, I see no real problems there.
I got a value about 14% different for spherical cap volume, dunno what happened there.
Same thing to say about KE, (1/12)mv^2 because omnidirectional dispersion.
I don't 100% understand the usage of hydrostatic pressure? But I also kinda do, it ends up being pressure * volume (or pressure * area, which is force, then multiplied by length/displacement, which gives you energy and is basically how all our frag/v.frag/pulv stuff works so it ends up being similar)

Third one - not so sure about the seemingly-out-of-nowhere 1.5x radius assumption, it's unfounded. If you can't guess how much further it extended I'd just only use the visible radius and consider it a lowball, personally.
The formula for underwater explosions checks out, though. I re-derived it from xkcd's formula and got one that gives the same value (albeit mine looks a lot neater i think), where R is in meters and p is in Pascals, and the result is in Joules.

Finally, for the fourth, I think the use of the ocean depth at that point is fine. It's explicitly mentioned the blast wave reached the surface and all the calc is doing is assuming that the explosion expanded in the same shape, which is normal. I'm honestly partial to the high-end of that one because of the fact that it accounts for the water pressure and the depth it happened at.

I don't think any of the clips show whether the machine tanking it actually survived (cut off the instant it hits), so I'd like to see that before I say anything about whether the tanking part is viable or not.

Thanks for the response. Striker Eureka doesn’t survive although it is mentioned that pieces survived in Aftermath issue 1. Slattern does albeit visibly injured. Gipsy Danger also managed to survive getting hit by the fireball but from a distance as can be seen in the previously linked videos. Which calculation are you most partial to?

 

[Felipe_Walker16]

I agree, but one question, if accepted, will the Jaegers and Kaijus from Pacific Rim Uprising be upgraded to Large Island level (High 6-C)?

 

[1000TonsofFun]

I agree, but one question, if accepted, will the Jaegers and Kaijus from Pacific Rim Uprising be upgraded to Large Island level (High 6-C)?

There would still need to be a CRT to apply this and that CRT would have to be accepted by staff. But if that did happen then yes. But only if the High 6-C end is what’s agreed on by Calc group members.