Before I head to some cesspool like Yahoo Answers, I figured I'd try my question here.

 

I'm working on a wheel safety booklet for a heavy equipment company. If a worker fails to deflate a tire before maintenance, it can explode and send them flying a considerable distance - in some cases, hundreds of feet.  

 

I have a chart of commonly used tire sizes, each with a 'energy ft/lbs' figure. For example, a 40 x 57 tire has 807,218 ft/lbs of energy when cold. 

 

What I'd like to know, is if anyone here knows if I can parallel these numbers with something a lay-person can understand. For example, if I can state something along the lines of a certain tire possessing the equivalent energy of a grenade, that'd help people realize the danger of what they're working with. 

 

Is there anyone here who knows these sorts of figures or where I could go to find this stuff?

 

Thanks!

In the oilsands we use lots of Ultra-Class haul trucks (typically Catepillar 797, but Suncor in particular has announced a large purchase of Komatsu 960s over the next several years). While I have no real good analogies, I can tell you that if the tires on those trucks were to let go the explosive energy can (and has in the past) torn maintenance workers in half, as well as shattered industrial-strength windows in other equipment as far as 100 feet away.

Edited August 20, 20159 yr by El Kabong

I would convert to joules (1 foot pounds = 1.355 joules) and see if anything in this list is "lay-man" enough... though, I'll admit a lot of whats in the list is not really applicable... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_of_magnitude_(energy)