Sciencemadness Discussion Board - Can somebody explain why this happens? Capacitor discharge through a piece of foil shatters a ceramic tile

Can somebody explain why this happens? Capacitor discharge through a piece of foil shatters a ceramic tile

Beezwax - 5-4-2023 at 10:16

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L95sbD4cBg4

The explanation in the comment section is that the water-aluminum reaction increases the power output by several times.

Now I'm familiar with the interaction between hydrogen and aluminum for things like energetic materials, but this usually involves h2o2 rather than plain old tap water.

What really amazes me is that so much force is generated by an extremely low density piece of foil, with a relatively large surface area, submerged in several ml of water.

So what is really happening here at the atomic and chemical levels?

1.) I would also like to know if this reaction would have been different if the water had contained aluminum with a lower surface area, but greater suspension, such as aluminum nanoparticles.

2.) What if the weight-ratio of water to aluminum has been reversed: for example, imagine if something like this object here was made of aluminum and each "square" was hollow, and injected with h2o2:

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/W/IMAGERENDERING_521856-T1...

If an electrical current was discharged in to it, would you get a stronger or lesser effect?

[Edited on 4-5-2023 by Beezwax]

[Edited on 4-5-2023 by Beezwax]

[Edited on 4-5-2023 by Beezwax]

Metallophile - 5-4-2023 at 12:11

I kind of doubt that the aluminum and water reacted chemically. The water was just there to transmit the shockwave into the tile, from the exploding aluminum strip. All the explosive energy came from the electric charge.

Beezwax - 5-4-2023 at 12:55

Quote: Originally posted by Metallophile

I kind of doubt that the aluminum and water reacted chemically. The water was just there to transmit the shockwave into the tile, from the exploding aluminum strip. All the explosive energy came from the electric charge.

Admagistr - 5-4-2023 at 13:07

Don't you think that the extreme heat and electrical charge could generate both hydrogen and oxygen atoms?

https://www.sciencemadness.org/whisper/viewthread.php?tid=15...

http://www.sciencemadness.org/whisper/viewthread.php?tid=3214[/rquote]

Certainly, for the decomposition of water in its elements, a temperature of over 2000 C is sufficient and sparks electrical discharges have a temperature of over 10 000 C.

Metallophile - 5-4-2023 at 13:55

Quote: Originally posted by Beezwax

Don't you think that the extreme heat and electrical charge could generate both hydrogen and oxygen atoms?

Maybe, but I don't think it would add any net energy to the blast. Whatever energy is gained from detonating H2 and O2 would have first been absorbed in splitting the H2O. My hunch is there wasn't enough time for this to even happen.

Beezwax - 5-4-2023 at 15:00

Quote: Originally posted by Admagistr

Don't you think that the extreme heat and electrical charge could generate both hydrogen and oxygen atoms?

https://www.sciencemadness.org/whisper/viewthread.php?tid=15...

http://www.sciencemadness.org/whisper/viewthread.php?tid=3214[/rquote]

Certainly, for the decomposition of water in its elements, a temperature of over 2000 C is sufficient and sparks electrical discharges have a temperature of over 10 000 C.

Thanks very much for your comment ^_^
According some guy on Wikipedia even just 3000 celsius is sufficient for a significant water decomposition

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_splitting#Thermal_decomp...

"At the very high temperature of 3000 °C more than half of the water molecules are decomposed, but at ambient temperatures only one molecule in 100 trillion dissociates by the effect of heat.[15]"

In my opinion if the individual had used less water they would have gotten better power, since it is unlikely that 30ml of confined water can be decomposed by a spark. A water cloud, on other hand...

Beezwax - 5-4-2023 at 15:23

Quote: Originally posted by Metallophile

Quote: Originally posted by Beezwax

Don't you think that the extreme heat and electrical charge could generate both hydrogen and oxygen atoms?

Consider this: when the capacitor is discharged it should be converting the oxygen in the water near the aluminum in to positively charged oxygen. So we're not just talking about splitting regular water; the hydrogen bonds are weakened. I also think that this will produce oxygen free radicals and ionic separation. I'm pretty sure the addition of an electrolyte would have greatly enhanced this effect.

[Edited on 4-5-2023 by Beezwax]

Beezwax - 5-4-2023 at 15:31

Pages 180-181 talk about the timescales of free radical production (and OH2) in these kinds of explosions

https://sci-hub.se/https://www.jstor.org/stable/98998

[Edited on 4-5-2023 by Beezwax]

unionised - 6-4-2023 at 02:03

The likely explanation is simply the shockwave caused by the boiling of the foil.
But the reaction between water and aluminium (as vapours) will also generate heat and contribute to the net energy available to cause damage.

charley1957 - 6-4-2023 at 14:43

Go to capturedlightning.com to see what’s happening to the foil. On that website they use a copper coil to shrink quarters with a high powered pulse discharge and the copper coil often disintegrates violently such that it has to be enclosed in a heavy steel enclosure. Believe me, there’s a LOT of power available in a pulse discharge, so it’s no wonder the tile is shattered in your video, and it has absolutely nothing to do with dissociation of water.

Beezwax - 6-4-2023 at 17:06

Quote: Originally posted by charley1957
Go to capturedlightning.com to see what’s happening to the foil. On that website they use a copper coil to shrink quarters with a high powered pulse discharge and the copper coil often disintegrates violently such that it has to be enclosed in a heavy steel enclosure. Believe me, there’s a LOT of power available in a pulse discharge, so it’s no wonder the tile is shattered in your video, and it has absolutely nothing to do with dissociation of water.

You're saying that a virtually massless spark was able to shatter a thick glass bottom and a ceramic tile; both of which are extremely effective insulators, with enornous compression strength. That's unlikely.

Seems more likely to me that we are dealing with a hitherto unexplained phenomenon whereby an electric charge makes atomic particles unstable and explosive. In this case, hydrogen and oxygen molecules are probably being separated, charged, and absorbed by aluminum and plasma, generating a kind of ionic explosion.

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2207858119

[B]In this work, we show that when sessile droplets of the newly discovered ferroelectric nematic fluid phase are deposited on a ferroelectric solid substrate, they can become suddenly unstable and disintegrate though the emission of fluid jets. The instability is due to the coupling between the polarizations of the liquid and solid materials, which induces the accumulation of polarization charges on the droplet–air interface and thus, the buildup of a repulsion pressure that eventually overcomes the surface tension. This kind of polarization-induced Rayleigh instability crucially depends on the unique combination of polarization and fluidity of the ferroelectric nematic and might provide the basis for electrohydromechanical applications.

Abstract

We investigated the electrostatic behavior of ferroelectric liquid droplets exposed to the pyroelectric field of a lithium niobate ferroelectric crystal substrate. The ferroelectric liquid is a nematic liquid crystal, in which almost complete polar ordering of the molecular dipoles generates an internal macroscopic polarization locally collinear to the mean molecular long axis. Upon entering the ferroelectric phase by reducing the temperature from the nematic phase, the liquid crystal droplets become electromechanically unstable and disintegrate by the explosive emission of fluid jets. These jets are mostly interfacial, spreading out on the substrate surface, and exhibit fractal branching out into smaller streams to eventually disrupt, forming secondary droplets. We understand this behavior as a manifestation of the Rayleigh instability of electrically charged fluid droplets, expected when the electrostatic repulsion exceeds the surface tension of the fluid. In this case, the charges are due to the bulk polarization of the ferroelectric fluid, which couples to the pyroelectric polarization of the underlying lithium niobate substrate through its fringing field and solid–fluid interface coupling. Since the ejection of fluid does not neutralize the droplet surfaces, they can undergo multiple explosive events as the temperature decreases.

[Edited on 4-7-2023 by Beezwax]

[Edited on 4-7-2023 by Beezwax]

[Edited on 4-7-2023 by Beezwax]

Beezwax - 6-4-2023 at 17:19

One argument against this being the result of a spark or mere boiling water is that this appears to have had a direct impact on a point, as conventional primary explosives do, rather than an area. It's very clear that most of the energy was sent directly downard in to the tile, rather than against the thin walls of the glass as we would expect from boiling water or the spark.

Sir_Gawain - 6-4-2023 at 17:21

When the aluminium strip is vaporized it expands thousands of times in an incredibly small amount of time. When I was testing my EBW setup I discharged it through a copper wire in a beaker of mineral oil. The mineral oil was ejected violently from the beaker. My capacitor bank is 50 times smaller so it didn't break the beaker.

Beezwax - 6-4-2023 at 17:34

Quote: Originally posted by Sir_Gawain

When the aluminium strip is vaporized it expands thousands of times in an incredibly small amount of time. When I was testing my EBW setup I discharged it through a copper wire in a beaker of mineral oil. The mineral oil was ejected violently from the beaker. My capacitor bank is 50 times smaller so it didn't break the beaker.

We all know these things have enormous energy; threy are used as detonation devices. But they simply don't have enough mass to shatter glass bottoms and ceramic tiles or beakers imo. There's just no way a strip of aluminum was going to shatter such dense objects on speed alone; it needs more mass to transfer energy to what was beneath it. The reason your beaker didn't break might be because you used mineral oil which lacks oxygen and contains anti-oxidants.

If there was a primary out there that could weigh as much as that strip of aluminum and cause this level of damage, people would believe it is impossible. Why is the strip of aluminum any different? Seems much more likely to me that this energy is coming from the water itself. Water molecules are being charged, separated and detonated here. Imagine if there was an electrolyte like aluminum nanoparticles suspended in the water; you could have gotten even more oxygen and hydrogen to detonate.

[Edited on 4-7-2023 by Beezwax]

Sir_Gawain - 6-4-2023 at 18:13

While the water/aluminium plasma effect you're talking about does exist (see Sam Barros' Powerlabs' Electrothermal Gun), in this case it is not the major factor. When the aluminium strip explodes, the plasma fireball occupies space the water did previously. The extremely fast moving water slams into the plate and smashes it. This is due to the hydraulic property of water.

unionised - 7-4-2023 at 01:03

Quote: Originally posted by Beezwax

But they simply don't have enough mass to shatter glass bottoms and ceramic tiles or beakers imo.

[Edited on 4-7-2023 by Beezwax]

Reality shows that your opinion is wrong.

The glass of water clearly does have enough mass to shatter things.
(And the glass, propelled by the water, has enough energy to shatter the tile.

Rainwater - 7-4-2023 at 01:48

Many important details are missing from this experiment to properly prove what is observed. Tho assumptions could be made with accuracy.
The following would be nessacery for proper calculations.

Length, width, thickness, alloy composition of the aluminum or total resistance
Capacitance value - 50uF
Length, composition of test leads
Switch closed resistance
Switch off-on delay
Initial voltage - 6kV
Final voltage
Water temperature
Water volume 30mL

So 50uF charged to 6kV = about .36 coulombs
That is a lot of energy.
Assuming leads and foil have a total resistance of .1 ohms and the switch is ideal
A 90% discharge will produce an initial current of over 60000amps
Given aluminums thermal coffecent being +0.0429 and completely guessing at the size and shape, thats over a 10000c temperature rise in a period of 2.5uS
All that is just idealistic theory,

I doubt that the discharge would procede that far with the conductive path intact. Most likely would be the explosive expansion of the foil do to thermal stress then the production of plasma arcs.
Knowing the final discharge voltage and inital resistance a timeline could be formed showing when the conductive path altered

[Edited on 7-4-2023 by Rainwater]

Beezwax - 7-4-2023 at 01:50

Quote: Originally posted by unionised

Quote: Originally posted by Beezwax

But they simply don't have enough mass to shatter glass bottoms and ceramic tiles or beakers imo.

[Edited on 4-7-2023 by Beezwax]

Reality shows that your opinion is wrong.

The glass of water clearly does have enough mass to shatter things.
(And the glass, propelled by the water, has enough energy to shatter the tile.

Keyword: water.

Beezwax - 7-4-2023 at 02:08

Quote: Originally posted by Rainwater

Many important details are missing from this experiment to properly prove what is observed. Tho assumptions could be made with accuracy.
The following would be nessacery for proper calculations.

Length, width, thickness, alloy composition of the aluminum or total resistance
Capacitance value - 50uF
Length, composition of test leads
Switch closed resistance
Switch off-on delay
Initial voltage - 6kV
Final voltage
Water temperature
Water volume 30mL

So 50uF charged to 6kV = about .36 coulombs
That is a lot of energy.
Assuming leads and foil have a total resistance of .1 ohms and the switch is ideal
A 90% discharge will produce an initial current of over 60000amps
Given aluminums thermal coffecent being +0.0429 and completely guessing at the size and shape, thats over a 10000c temperature rise in a period of 2.5uS
All that is just idealistic theory,

Compression strength ceramic tile : 20,000 psi

Rainwater - 7-4-2023 at 02:34

Quote: Originally posted by Beezwax

Compression strength ceramic tile : 20,000 psi

Drop it on its corner. Compresive strength is given under a very specific situation. It is mitigated by the malibulity or ductile strength of the material. It also only applies to sub harmonics stress propagation speeds. If the shock wave excedes the speed of sound through the material, a standing wave forms creating multiple high and low pressure points.

Besides, tiles are easy to break.
Chemical reactions are taking place but are a result of the extream temperature and pressure. At least while a conductive path exist through the metal. Once that path is broken, electrolysis can occure

Texium - 7-4-2023 at 05:56

@Beezwax: in the title of this thread you ask for an explanation of this phenomenon. However, it seems you are unsatisfied with the explanations everyone is providing, and in fact already had your mind made up. If you are going to keep disagreeing with everything that doesn’t support your foregone conclusion, you’re going to need to present some more substantial evidence to support your position. Otherwise I’m going to have to close this thread.

charley1957 - 7-4-2023 at 09:05

Beeswax, I see you didn’t bother to check out the link and find out what’s going on. You’d see that they are using a capacitor discharge through copper coils to actually shrink coins down to almost half their original size. There’s a complete explanation of the physics involved and the forces generated to do this. It’s not exactly the same, as they were using copper coils and not a strip of foil, but the process is basically the same and the forces generated are tremendous. And not a drop of water in sight.

[Edited on Apr04-7-2023 by charley1957]

Beezwax - 7-4-2023 at 09:33

Quote: Originally posted by charley1957

Beeswax, I see you didn’t bother to check out the link and find out what’s going on. You’d see that they are using a capacitor discharge through copper coils to actually shrink coins down to almost half their original size. There’s a complete explanation of the physics involved and the forces generated to do this. It’s not exactly the same, as they were using copper coils and not a strip of foil, but the process is basically the same and the forces generated are tremendous. And not a drop of water in sight.

[Edited on Apr04-7-2023 by charley1957]

The ballistic forces are not tremendous at all; the "steel enclosure" you speak of was two 0.25inch thick plates of stamped steel with two pieces of particleboard that could have been penetrated by a 22 bb gun. It's intended to prevent sparks from hitting people and in no way contained any significant pressure.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6mMWTsg56w

[Edited on 4-7-2023 by Beezwax]

[Edited on 4-7-2023 by Beezwax]

Beezwax - 7-4-2023 at 10:01

Quote: Originally posted by Texium

@Beezwax: in the title of this thread you ask for an explanation of this phenomenon. However, it seems you are unsatisfied with the explanations everyone is providing, and in fact already had your mind made up. If you are going to keep disagreeing with everything that doesn’t support your foregone conclusion, you’re going to need to present some more substantial evidence to support your position. Otherwise I’m going to have to close this thread.

Why? Everbody is giving a different answer and I have provided the only sources in the thread, which haven't even been discussed.

Summary of responses so far:

Metallophile & Charlie1957: It has nothing to do with dissociation of water, everything to do with spark, no way water and aluminum reaction contributed net energy to explosion

Unionised & SirGawain: it is due to the hydraulic effect from water, consumption of oxygen from water plays some role, heat from aluminim +,water reaction did contribute net energy to explosion

This is clearly an unsettled matter that ought to be discussed rather than shut down...

[Edited on 4-7-2023 by Beezwax]

unionised - 7-4-2023 at 12:05

Quote: Originally posted by Beezwax

Compression strength ceramic tile : 20,000 psi

To a good approximation, nothing ever fails in compression.
What's the tensile strength?

Beezwax - 7-4-2023 at 14:01

Quote: Originally posted by unionised

Quote: Originally posted by Beezwax

Compression strength ceramic tile : 20,000 psi

To a good approximation, nothing ever fails in compression.
What's the tensile strength?

Very low but with the tile laid perrectly flat it's pretty clear tensile strength wasn't an important matter here. That's more of an issue for the glass which shattered (probably along the thin walls of the glass) before the tile broke; which also seems to mitigate the affect of hydrualic pressure, at least for me.

Metallophile - 7-4-2023 at 15:29

What are you getting at? What do you think actually happened? The explosion clearly broke the tile. I really don't understand what you're trying to say.

Beezwax - 7-4-2023 at 16:14

Indeed, but what I'm offering for thought here is that this explosion seems to be special. It caused an inordinate amount of damage that I never would have thought possible using a capacitor discharge. I am positing that there may be something to this that we do not fully understand. The electrostatic charge in the water may enable oxygen and possibly hydrogen to be realized as a fuel which could greatly increase the energetic density of a water based mixture. If this is really feasible then it is significant and has many practical applications. We might call it an electrohydrodynamic fuel. I am saying we should do more research about a possible electric enhancement of combustion and detonation rather than staring down the same purely chemical loophole that we have been fixated on since the 19th century.

[Edited on 4-8-2023 by Beezwax]

charley1957 - 7-4-2023 at 16:36

Well I don’t know where you buy your BB guns, but any .25” thick steel I know of won’t be penetrated by a 9mm round, much less a BB gun. That enclosure is there to contain the high velocity shrapnel generated when the copper coils explode and vaporize, protecting bystanders from injury from that and arc flash burns, which occur when the copper is vaporized and explodes out in all directions with tremendous force and temperatures, up to 20,000 degrees F.

Beezwax - 7-4-2023 at 17:15

Quote: Originally posted by charley1957

Well I don’t know where you buy your BB guns, but any .25” thick steel I know of won’t be penetrated by a 9mm round, much less a BB gun. That enclosure is there to contain the high velocity shrapnel generated when the copper coils explode and vaporize, protecting bystanders from injury from that and arc flash burns, which occur when the copper is vaporized and explodes out in all directions with tremendous force and temperatures, up to 20,000 degrees F.

Tremendous temperature and speed but very little force. Tiny, microscopic fragments have negligible mass and can't penetrate particle board. The chage is there to protect people from getting burned not from getting hit by prrssure wave like the one that destroyed that tile.

unionised - 8-4-2023 at 00:05

Quote: Originally posted by Beezwax

Tremendous temperature and speed but very little force.

If you heat a gas from 293K to 29300K the pressure rises by a factor of 100.
It starts near 1 atmosphere- about 14.7 pounds per square inch.
So it will reach something like 1470 pounds per square inch.
There are a few square inches of foil.
So you suddenly have several tons of force in a beaker.

Why are you calling that force small?

Rainwater - 8-4-2023 at 04:47

Beezwax, together lets build mathematical model of the aluminum foil arc flash experiment

I will setup the initial state and then you can make some perduction about what will happen. If your willing to help then ill do some math for this

Try to bare with me here, as simple as it looks, this is a complex physics experiment so I will try my best to break it down into seperate sections, each demonstrating the dominant effect during a given time frame.

mass, volume, surface area, state of matter, conductivity, tempature, energy emissions (conductive/convective/radiative/magnetic) kinetic/potential forces and conversions will be calculated over a time domain.

After about 4pS we will need to create a model for energy gradients and mater phase transfer probability, so the movment and state of particles can be prodicted and if you wish and are willing to put in the work on the mathmatics, I can show you how to build a physics engine and apply the model in to generate some 4d animation.

This will not be an overnight indever, it will require serious work and time. 100s of hours of study

Some basic parameters for the system we are going to model need to be defined.(aluminum and water)

Dimensions of the foil are going to be length 0.02m width 0.01m thickness 0.001m
(2cm×1cm×1mm)
Its parameters are as follows.

Mass 0.504g
volume 2.0×10^-7m³
cross sectional area 1.0×10^-5m²
Total surface area = ~4.0×10^-4
The resistance of aluminum is r = 2.65 x 10^-8 Ω m³
R = rL/A
Total resistance @ 25c = 5.3×10^-5

If your game, double check my math and point out any errors please.

charley1957 - 8-4-2023 at 06:11

Quote: Tremendous temperature and speed but very little force. Tiny, microscopic fragments have negligible mass and can't penetrate particle board. The chage is there to protect people from getting burned not from getting hit by prrssure wave like the one that destroyed that tile.

From the Captured Lightning website:

Other experimenters (Rob Stephens, Bill Emery, Phillip Rembold, Ross Overstreet, Brian Basura, Joe DiPrima, and Ed Wingate) have resorted to using 100% steel enclosures when running at higher power levels. Adding strategically-placed steel plates has stopped our Lexan blast shield from fracturing. We've found that AR400 steel plates (also used for armor in Humvees!) are well suited to surviving repetitive bombardment from supersonic coil shrapnel. But even these must be periodically replaced after a couple thousand shots.

Notice the term supersonic coil shrapnel. Also they say that the steel plates must eventually be replaced, presumably from erosion by the shrapnel.

Beezwax - 8-4-2023 at 10:14

Quote: Originally posted by unionised

Quote: Originally posted by Beezwax

Tremendous temperature and speed but very little force.

Thank you for the calculations but this is still well below the compressive force that ceramic tile is rated for (20,000 psi).

Morgan - 8-4-2023 at 10:16

The long piece of aluminum foil (in air) was an energetic effect.
https://youtu.be/JJuo-cXzYws

Beezwax - 8-4-2023 at 10:36

Quote: Originally posted by Rainwater

Beezwax, together lets build mathematical model of the aluminum foil arc flash experiment

I will setup the initial state and then you can make some perduction about what will happen. If your willing to help then ill do some math for this

Try to bare with me here, as simple as it looks, this is a complex physics experiment so I will try my best to break it down into seperate sections, each demonstrating the dominant effect during a given time frame.

mass, volume, surface area, state of matter, conductivity, tempature, energy emissions (conductive/convective/radiative/magnetic) kinetic/potential forces and conversions will be calculated over a time domain.

After about 4pS we will need to create a model for energy gradients and mater phase transfer probability, so the movment and state of particles can be prodicted and if you wish and are willing to put in the work on the mathmatics, I can show you how to build a physics engine and apply the model in to generate some 4d animation.

This will not be an overnight indever, it will require serious work and time. 100s of hours of study

Some basic parameters for the system we are going to model need to be defined.(aluminum and water)

Dimensions of the foil are going to be length 0.02m width 0.01m thickness 0.001m
(2cm×1cm×1mm)
Its parameters are as follows.

Mass 0.504g
volume 2.0×10^-7m³
cross sectional area 1.0×10^-5m²
Total surface area = ~4.0×10^-4
The resistance of aluminum is r = 2.65 x 10^-8 Ω m³
R = rL/A
Total resistance @ 25c = 5.3×10^-5

If your game, double check my math and point out any errors please.

Thanks very much for this calculation. I woule be interested in doing this as it could provide answers for whether or not a simple discharge could generate enough force to shatter a ceramic tile.

However, I am really interested in the electro-chemical nature of the water-aoumnium discharge. As I've said before, this should lead to a dissociation of water and the creation of oxygen free radicals, which are more energetically dense and reactive than regular oxygen.

02 oxygen + e* electrons ----> 2[O] (oxygen "fragments")

These oxygen "fragments" are highly reactive and combine rapidly with molecular oxygen to form the triatomic molecule, ozone:

2[O] + 2O² oxygen ----> 2O² ozone

Again I am asking folks to look at this from an electro chemistry of what his happening here rather than trying to prove how much energy a spark has. Look at the bigger picture: a high energy electrical current wil convert oxygen in to ozone. Water is a really dense source of oxygen and aluminum is able to source oxygen from water. Please tell me your thoughts about this specific electro-hydrodynamic reaction.

[Edited on 4-8-2023 by Beezwax]

[Edited on 4-8-2023 by Beezwax]

numos - 8-4-2023 at 16:45

Quote: Originally posted by Beezwax

Indeed, but what I'm offering for thought here is that this explosion seems to be special. It caused an inordinate amount of damage that I never would have thought possible using a capacitor discharge. I am positing that there may be something to this that we do not fully understand. The electrostatic charge in the water may enable oxygen and possibly hydrogen to be realized as a fuel which could greatly increase the energetic density of a water based mixture. If this is really feasible then it is significant and has many practical applications. We might call it an electrohydrodynamic fuel. I am saying we should do more research about a possible electric enhancement of combustion and detonation rather than staring down the same purely chemical loophole that we have been fixated on since the 19th century.

[Edited on 4-8-2023 by Beezwax]

Sorry, I've read through this thread a couple times and I'm a little confused, everyone seems to be explaining why the discharge alone is sufficient to break the tile, but I'm still confused what beeswax is proposing as the source of energy.

You're suggesting that the aluminum foil exploding underwater is amplified by the water? Where exactly do you propose this energy is coming from? Water is generally accepted as a thermodynamic and energetic dead end. The only two possible things I could think of that would provide any noticeable amplification would be -

-splitting the water -> H2/H ions -> fusion, while this would provide a lot of energy, you're not going to come close to the conditions required from a dinky capacitor bank.

-splitting the water -> O2/O ions -> Al2O3, you could argue that alumina is such a strong thermodynamic sink that that rapidly "burning" the aluminum underwater would release energy. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if alumina is formed in such a demonstration. But I am doubtful that a few mg of aluminum would make much difference at all, especially since most of the heat would be absorbed by the surrounding water, and the fact that splitting water itself is a very energy intense process.

They've blown up countless nukes underwater - explosions studied in great depth by experienced physicists using state of the art sensor equipment - no doubt such a phenomenon, if possible, would have been noticed?

This problem seems like it would benefit greatly by the application of Occam's razor - the video you provided suggests the simplest explanation, the one everyone else is trumpeting, is correct. For me personally, you'll need much more evidence to sway my doubt. I'm not saying you're wrong - I'm say with what you have, no one with a science degree will believe you.

Morgan - 8-4-2023 at 16:56

Water expands 1600 times its volume when turned to steam. How much force could be attributed to that effect?

https://www.livescience.com/28186-krakatoa.html

Twospoons - 8-4-2023 at 19:31

This is not much different to a lithotripter, which fires an arc underwater to create a shockwave that is focused to break up kidney stones. Based on the number of what appear to be microwave oven capacitors in the video, I'd estimate the available electrical energy to be in the range of 50-80 J. Thats quite a bit, and plenty to break a tile, though obviously not all of it will end up in the shockwave. For reference, when we do standardised impact testing at work (on payment terminals) we expect to pass an 8J impact with no damage, but we test to 10J - and things usually crack at that point. And this is for a product meant to be asshole resistant. A ceramic tile wouldn't stand a chance.

Beezwax - 8-4-2023 at 20:22

You're suggesting that the aluminum foil exploding underwater is amplified by the water? Where exactly do you propose this energy is coming from? Water is generally accepted as a thermodynamic and energetic dead end. The only two possible things I could think of that would provide any noticeable amplification would be -

It has something to do with the electric charge breaking off free radicals from the oxygen in the water.

-splitting the water -> H2/H ions -> fusion, while this would provide a lot of energy, you're not going to come close to the conditions required from a dinky capacitor bank.

Ok, now the the capacitor discharge is dinky.

-splitting the water -> O2/O ions -> Al2O3, you could argue that alumina is such a strong thermodynamic sink that that rapidly "burning" the aluminum underwater would release energy. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if alumina is formed in such a demonstration. But I am doubtful that a few mg of aluminum would make much difference at all, especially since most of the heat would be absorbed by the surrounding water, and the fact that splitting water itself is a very energy intense process.

Well, so is breaking a ceramic tile if you are an aluminum strip.

Also, not all of the oxygen has to be split from water. Aluminum can pull oxygen out of water molecules, and also dissolved oxygen in the water.

They've blown up countless nukes underwater - explosions studied in great depth by experienced physicists using state of the art sensor equipment - no doubt such a phenomenon, if possible, would have been noticed?

I'm sure that the information would be kept from public knowledge if true, especially if aluminum nuclear weapons had been developed.

This problem seems like it would benefit greatly by the application of Occam's razor - the video you provided suggests the simplest explanation, the one everyone else is trumpeting, is correct. For me personally, you'll need much more evidence to sway my doubt. I'm not saying you're wrong - I'm say with what you have, no one with a science degree will believe you.

1.) Not everyone is trumpeting the same explanation. See post 4-7-2023 at 12:01 PM on the first page.

2.) There is nothing complicated about my explanation; it's very simple.

3.) Michael Riconosciuto claimed to have invented something called an "electrohydrodynamic gasseous fuel device" which uses a mixture of aluminum silicate and AN, which is dispersed in to a cloud, positively charged by a capacitor bank discharge, and then detonated.

From the Gunderson report:

"The secondary shock wave is driven beyond the "Chapman Jugo" condition as the leading edge of the wave is compressed into a thin boundary. The chemical reaction from ordinary explosive effect is enhanced by the electro-chemical effect, electrons are converted into energy at a much higher scale. The reaction is considered A-Neutronic as an over-driven detonation takes place.

The only description left is the electronic analogy of this dynamic system and how the Ionic separation takes place. This is a well-kept secret."

Samuel Cohen, the father of the neutron bomb, had this to say about about Riconosciuto's invention:

"Well, I'm not expert enough to really vouch for his statements, but I've got a hunch that it's technically well-based. I've spoken to Michael Riconosciuto (the inventor of the A-Neutronic Bomb) and he's an extraordinarily bright guy. I also have a hunch, which I can't prove, that they both (Riconosciuto and Lavos, his partner) indirectly work for the CIA."

So some people might want to be calling their university and asking about a refund for their education.

[Edited on 4-9-2023 by Beezwax]