I had to call the cops on myself today. They were very nice.

[FreeJoe]

58. Gasoline Facts

Gasoline cars don't ever explode, at least not from the gasoline. They just burn. Gasoline requires oxygen to burn. The burning only happens on the surface of the gasoline, so not enough energy gets released quickly enough to cause an explosion.

The difference between something like gasoline that burns and something like dynamite that explodes is that the latter already has all of the reagents mixed together. With dynamite, once the reaction starts all of the fuel is consumed almost instantly. The energy is released so quickly that an explosion occurs. With gasoline, only the surface of the gasoline reacts with the air, so the energy is released more slowly.

Interestingly, a given amount of gasoline has more energy than most explosives (like dynamite). It is the difficulty in getting oxygen mixed with it that makes it less useful as an explosive. I think the US military has a gasoline bomb that works in two stages. The first stage spreads the gasoline into a fine vapor and then ignites the vapor. Because the gasoline is in a vapor, every bit of gasoline has oxygen from the air to react with and all of the energy can be released quickly.

Back to the original point - cars can burn intensely, but they don't explode regardless of how bad the gas tank is designed.