Can radios frequency causes explosives to explode?

Answer 1

Years ago, it was quite common to see signs on roads through construction areas

that said "Blasting area. Turn off 2-way radios". They were there because of the

very real ability of a strong RF field to prematurely set off a charge that was being

prepared for a blast.

To understand how this works, think of the antenna wire on your radio receiver. The

idea of the receiving antenna is: As the electromagnetic radiation of the radio signal

sails by, it creates a current in the antenna wire. The current flows into the receiver,

and the receiver decodes the information off of that current.

I know nothing about explosives, but it seems that they're commonly detonated by

running wires from a safe distance, and sending a current through the wires into

the explosive when it's time to blow it up. If a car happens to driving by the site

and keys his radio transmitter at just the right (wrong) place, it's conceivable that

the wires to the charge could act as an antenna, and the radio signal could cause

enough current in the wires to detonate the charge.

I honestly don't know what has changed in the explosives or the methods of preparing and

detonating them, but I don't remember seeing any of those signs for several years now.

In any case, you would not say that the radio frequency energy directly caused the

explosive to explode. It was the wires that caused it to explode, just like they were

intended to, but the RF energy created a current in the wires when there wasn't

supposed to be any.

If you want to talk about RF energy detonating the explosive directly, you'd have to

try awfully hard in order to accomplsh that. Like for example putting your lump of C4

in your microwave oven and microwaving it on HIGH for a few minutes.