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ANFO stands for Ammonium Nitrate / Fuel Oil, and describes a crude but effective explosive that is used by farmers to clear stumps and by the mining industry (because it is easy to pump in slurry form) to break up overburden rock and expose ore in open pit mining.
The formulation of ANFO is well known. Ammonium nitrate is a substance most commonly used as a fertilizer. When mixed with fuel oil (diesel fuel, kerosene, JP-1 jet fuel, etc), it can be used as an improvised low yield explosive. Commercial explosives based on ANFO are also available.
Because of the easy availability of its ingredients, ANFO is often used by terrorists for large bombs. ANFO was often used by the Provisional IRA, ETA, and Palestinian extremist groups in their bombing campaigns. It was also found in the Manila apartment which Ramzi Yousef occupied after an apartment fire led authorities to his apartment, which was a bomb-making factory and plotting center for Operation Bojinka.
So called "fertilizer bombs" were made famous in America by their use in the Oklahoma City bombing which maimed and killed hundreds of victims. However, that bomb was only remotely based on the traditional ANFO formula. It used a sophisticated triggering sequence and compressed oxygen to achieve a larger detonation than is possible using mundane means.
ANFO at standard temperature and pressure is classified as a low explosive. At extremely high temperatures and pressures, the primary oxidant undergoes a phase change that allows the material to become much more compressible. In this highly compressed state, ANFO is a high explosive.
Explosives are classified as low or high explosives according to their rates of decomposition: low explosives burn rapidly (or deflagrate), while high explosives undergo detonation.
The term "detonation" is used to describe an explosive phenomenon whereby the decomposition is propagated by the explosive shockwave traversing the explosive material.
A chemical explosive is a compound or mixture which, upon the application of heat or shock, decomposes or rearranges with extreme rapidity, yielding much gas and heat.
Where the continuity of a column of explosives in a borehole is broken, either by improper explosive placement, or where some foreign matter has separated the charge in the hole.
An explosive reaction that consists of the propagation of a shock wave through the explosive accompanied by a chemical reaction that furnishes energy to sustain the shock propagation in a stable manner, with gaseous formation and pressure expansion following shortly thereafter.
Explosive materials containing substantial amounts of water and high proportions of ammonium nitrate, some of which is in water solution.
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