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Author: Subject: Can somebody explain why this happens? Capacitor discharge through a piece of foil shatters a ceramic tile
Beezwax
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[*] posted on 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.
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[*] posted on 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.
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[*] posted on 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]
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charley1957
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[*] posted on 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.



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Beezwax
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[*] posted on 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.
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unionised
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[*] posted on 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?
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[*] posted on 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 2.0×10-7
cross sectional area 1.0×10-5
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.




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charley1957
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[*] posted on 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.




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[*] posted on 8-4-2023 at 10:14


Quote: Originally posted by unionised  
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?


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

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[*] posted on 8-4-2023 at 10:16


The long piece of aluminum foil (in air) was an energetic effect.
https://youtu.be/JJuo-cXzYws
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[*] posted on 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 2.0×10-7
cross sectional area 1.0×10-5
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]
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[*] posted on 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.
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[*] posted on 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
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[*] posted on 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.



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[*] posted on 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]
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