  The self-similar expansion of a blast wave, well-studied in air, has peculiar
counterparts in dense and dissipative media such as granular gases. Recent
results have shown that, while the traditional Taylor-von Neumann-Sedov (TvNS)
derivation is not applicable to such granular blasts, they can nevertheless be
well understood via a combination of microscopic and hydrodynamic insights. In
this article, we provide a detailed analysis of these methods associating
Molecular Dynamics simulations and continuum equations, which successfully
predict hydrodynamic profiles, scaling properties and the instability of the
self-similar solution. We also present new results for the energy conserving
case, including the particle-level analysis of the classic TvNS solution and
its breakdown at higher densities.
