Frangible nut
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The Frangible nut, commonly confused with an explosive bolt, is a component used many industries, but most commonly by NASA to sever mechanical connections, including the solid rocket boosters (SRB) of the space shuttle, which are bolted to the mobile launcher platform (MLP) until liftoff.
It is, by definition, an explosively splittable nut. The bolt remains intact while the nut itself is split in two or more parts[1]. On the shuttle, this is accomplished by using a NASA standard detonator or NSD. The space shuttle uses 2 NSDs for the top nut on each of the four 3.5" diameter bolts holding each SRB to the MLP.
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