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Re: Dry ice on TC output terminal (breakdown of CO2)
Tesla List wrote:
>
> Original Poster: wwl-at-netcomuk.co.uk (Mike Harrison)
>
> On Fri, 28 Aug 1998 16:42:51 -0600, you wrote:
>
> >Original Poster: Jim Lux <James.P.Lux-at-jpl.nasa.gov>
> >
> >> One other thought, if CO2 impregnated air has a lower
> >> dielectric strength than that of normal air then a small fan blowing
> >> on the apparatus might cause the discharge to fire in a prefered
> >> direction?
> >>
> >
> >CO2 has almost the same dielectric strength as air.
> >http://home.earthlink-dot-net/~jimlux/hv/insulgas.htm
>
> .. but might the cold CO2 cause moisture to condense out of the air,
> decreasing the breakdown voltage?
I don't know if anyone has done any quantitive studies of the breakdown
voltage of "fog". The particles might help form a conductive path.
Certainly, they have a very high dielectric constant, so the voltage
gradient will tend to be higher inside the particles, but, on the other
hand, water has a much higher breakdown strength than air.
Cold CO2 would be denser than air (or even warm CO2), which would
increase the dielectric strength (all other things being equal,
dielectric strength is propoportional to density).