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Re: exploding wire



Original poster: "BRIAN FOLEY" <ka1bbg@xxxxxxxxxxx>

Hi, just finnished an hour of viewing your sight. very nice!
cul brian f.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tesla list" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, June 12, 2006 10:51 PM
Subject: Re: exploding wire


> Original poster: "Peter Terren" <pterren@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
>
> Exploding wires make beautiful and varied pictures and are the most
> dramatic non Tesla photos around. Great for desktop wallpaper.
> My gallery is here:
> http://tesladownunder.com/Pulse_Power.htm
>
> Peter
>
> >Original poster: Jim Lux <jimlux@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> >
> >Here's a demo of exploding wires
> >http://web.mit.edu/Edgerton/www/ExplodingWire.html
> >
> >They use 500 uF @ 800V to zap a shortish piece of NiCr wire.  With
> >their energies, I'm not sure they're really getting an honest
> >explosion (as in creating a shock wave).
> >
> >In my experience, it takes about a kJ to get a good explosion from a
> >one meter long wire in the AWG 32 or finer area. Both aluminum and
> >copper wire work. I ran 5-20 uF at 10+kV.
> >
> >Exploding wires is a matter of peak powers, too.
> >
> >There is a definite series of qualitatively obvious phenomena.  From
> >lowest to highest energy:
> >Melting
> >Melting into droplets with sparks  (a "pop", like a fuse burning out)
> >Melting and flashing over like a spark(a crackle or "flash", like
> >any old spark, eg. from a TC)
> >Exploding (a distinct "bang" or "crack")
> >
> >Visually, they're quite different.  All of them, except the
> >explosion, appear to "propagate" along the wire, at least in a meter
> >long segment.
> >
> >in order to explode, the wire has to liquefy, then vaporize, then
> >ionize, before the material has a chance to move around. So, you
> >have to put a fair amount of energy into the wire, fairly
> >quickly.  You can calculate the amount of energy required to
> >vaporize the wire pretty easily by looking up the heat of fusion and
> >vaporization for the material.
> >
> >The dyanmics are quite interesting, because the resistance of the
> >wire rises rapidly as it heats, so getting enough current into it
> >quickly enough requires a substantial voltage.
> >
> >>Thanks for all you do,
> >>Jim Mora
>
>