Editing Explosive (section)

===Brisance===
{{Main|Brisance}}
In addition to strength, explosives display a second characteristic, which is their shattering effect or brisance (from the French meaning to "break"). Brisance is important in determining the effectiveness of an explosion in fragmenting shells, bomb casings, and [[grenade]]s. The rapidity with which an explosive reaches its peak pressure ([[power (physics)|power]]) is a measure of its brisance. Brisance values are primarily employed in France and Russia.

The sand crush test is commonly employed to determine the relative brisance in comparison to TNT. No test is capable of directly comparing the explosive properties of two or more compounds; it is important to examine the data from several such tests (sand crush, [[trauzl lead block test|trauzl]], and so forth) in order to gauge relative brisance. True values for comparison require field experiments.