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brisance (bri-ZAHNS, French bree-ZAHNS) - n., the shattering effect of the sudden release of energy in an explosion.
A measure of how well something that burns extremely rapidly is at making stuff blow up. If you want to blow stuff up, you want high brisance, but if you want to propel a rocket into space, you want low brisance. There is no measurement unit for brisance -- instead, explosives are empirically measured and compared to a standard explosive (often TNT, since it's so well-known) at a particular test, such as shattering a bed of sand or, sometimes, denting a metal plate. As you can tell from the alternate pronunciation, it's a relatively recent (c.1910) adoption from French, from brisant, present participle of briser, to break, from Old French brisier, of Celtic origin (cognate of Irish brisim, (I) break).
---L.
A measure of how well something that burns extremely rapidly is at making stuff blow up. If you want to blow stuff up, you want high brisance, but if you want to propel a rocket into space, you want low brisance. There is no measurement unit for brisance -- instead, explosives are empirically measured and compared to a standard explosive (often TNT, since it's so well-known) at a particular test, such as shattering a bed of sand or, sometimes, denting a metal plate. As you can tell from the alternate pronunciation, it's a relatively recent (c.1910) adoption from French, from brisant, present participle of briser, to break, from Old French brisier, of Celtic origin (cognate of Irish brisim, (I) break).
---L.
