How blast radius scales with explosive size
Blast overpressure from an explosion follows a well-established cube-root scaling law: doubling the explosive mass does not double the damage radius, because blast energy spreads out over an expanding volume, not just a distance.
The formula
The standard scaling relation is R = Z × W1/3, where W is the TNT-equivalent explosive mass and Z is a scaled-distance constant associated with a given overpressure threshold. This calculator uses commonly cited approximate Z values for three damage levels: about 3.2 for severe structural damage/high casualty risk (~10 psi), 5.6 for moderate structural damage (~3 psi), and 15 for window glass breakage (~1 psi).
These are rough order-of-magnitude approximations from simplified air-blast scaling data; actual blast effects depend heavily on explosive type, confinement, terrain, and structure type, and require specialized tools (such as Kingery-Bulmash curves) for real engineering or safety analysis. This calculator is for general physics education only and is not a substitute for professional hazard assessment.