That poses another question. A thin conductor does not have much capacitance. The model calculations for a real arc indicate about 10 to 20 pF/m. That is much more than a 0.2mm wire would have. Possibly a thin conductor like that would be a perfect breakout point for sideways arcs or create corona around the main arc, adding capacitance.
Antonio Carlos M. de Queiroz wrote:
Thin conductors have really this range of capacitance. The inductance of a thin wire is approximately 1 uH/m. Adding distributed capacitance, a transmission line is formed. With L being the inductance per meter and C the >capacitance per meter, the speed of a signal travelling through the line is 1/sqrt(LC). As this speed must be smaller than the speed oflight c, c^2<1/(LC), C<1/(Lc^2) = 1/(1e-6 x 9e16) =11.1 pF/m.
If I apply the equations for a wire of 0.2 mm diameter 1 m above a conducting plane from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitance I get 5.6 pF/m. For 11.1 pF/m I would need wire diameter of 2.7 cm. The arc model discussed here doesn't work well with 5.6 pF/m. At a low capacitance like that the arcs become impossibly long if I adjust the series resistances, so that the arc consumes 20 kW at 70kV peak voltage. There is another reason I'm thinking about the pulsating electron cloud. It could be modelled by adding a resistor in series with every cap. A circuit like that could take care of the problem of the phase shift between voltage and current draw of the arc. I'd be delighted to hear about other estimates of arc capacitances. Also I'd be thankful for any pointers to literature about RF arcs. Udo _______________________________________________ Tesla mailing list Tesla@xxxxxxxxxx http://www.pupman.com/mailman/listinfo/tesla