Ok, I should have said more precisely "detonated like C4 that was properly initiated". I used C4 as an example for a detonating high explosive as it was mentioned by another poster and when he referred to it he obviously had in mind its use as a high explosive and not as a food ration heater. In my defense, I offered the Herman bomb disposal as an example that you can deflagrate high explosives.Deflagration has nothing to do with C4. You can take C and light it on fire, and it will deflagrate without an explosion. Any expansion of gasses during ignition in a container is enough to dtd if it the expansion increases past the speed of sound. The fact is those FBI blast containment vessels have certain ratings that was exceeded, or there was a major manufactor error.
From the article linked it looks like they did not exceed the weight of the explosives in the sphere. So, like you said, either the thing was not rated for detonating high explosives or it had a defect.
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