Re: Longitudinal Forces in Tesla Coil Metallic Conductors

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Original poster: "Peter Terren" <pterren@xxxxxxxxxxxx>

I have the pleasure of exploding a few wires and also have a wire 
collection from my 16kJ cap bank. I did a test fire of a can crush 
with fine wire (.024inch) in a plastic tube to see if the resulting 
plasma channel was sufficient to give a crushing 
current.  Experimental setup is here.
http://tesladownunder.com/Pulse_Power.htm#Can%20crusher%204
The net result at 4 kJ was slight denting of the can (perhaps 
equivalent to 500J worth) with no remaining charge on the cap. So the 
plasma held until the cap emptied but did not allow a high enough 
peak current compared to the wire.  I did not control for the reduced 
physical strength of the plastic tubing compared to the wire however. 
With the heavy wire, the can is torn in three pieces in that setup.
I don't really see why new physics is suggested by this. The radially 
expanding wire with a uniform force will bring out inhomogeneities in 
the wire and magnify them into physical rupture points. (in a way 
somewhat analagous to the Big Bang giving microwave background 
irregulatities, but that would really imply some new physics...).
Peter

> Hi Bert,
> I got a batch of your shrunken quarters years ago and I requested to 
> get the "wire fragments too" ;-)))
> "Normal" people get a kick out of the coins, but "I" got the wires 
> too since that is what is "really cool" :o))
> ........  There are inertial and explosive forces that tend to bend 
> the wire up too along with impacts to the containment walls...  The 
> wire fails in weak areas that become dominate fracture areas.  I 
> suspect plasmas became conductors as the system ripped apart too.........
> Cheers,
>         Terry