Streamer Behavior

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "S & J Young by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <youngs-at-konnections-dot-net>

Bart and other spark scientists,
 
At Bart's request, and for what it's worth, here are some observations on
streamer behavior vs BPS.  This is with twin 4 x 23 inch coils per my recent
postings.  Measurements are crude but some trends are apparent.  Observations
are for each toroid - they break out about the same.
 
First run:  Toroids spaced about 54 inches apart with one inch wires pointed
toward each other as breakout points.
The columns are 1) BPS, 2) corona length at tank cap charged to 10 KV, and 3)
the "gas burner" (multiple streamer) effect threshold tank cap voltage.
 
1)     2)     3)
100     3"     17 KV
150     4      16
200     6      16
250     9      17.2
300    12      18.6
400    15      N/A - streamer between two toroids prevented gas burnering      

500    15      N/A - ditto
 
It's interesting to see the streamer lengths increase for the same bang size as
BPS goes up.  It seems to level off at 400 BPS or so.  Column 3 data possibly
shows that more bang energy is needed to achieve multiple streamers as the BPS
goes up.
 
Second run:  Bare toroids with no breakout wires.  The toroids are a far cry
from being quite smooth.  There are numerous edges of aluminum tape and other
surface imperfections.  But at least it does take more bang size to break out
as compared to wire breakout points.  
The columns are 1) BPS, 2)tank cap voltage at onset of breakout, and
3)approximate length of corona streamers at onset of breakout.
 
1)      2)      3)
100    13.6KV   6"  gas burner
150    13.0     8   gas burner 
200    12.0    10   one streamer
300    11.6    13   one streamer
400    11.0    15   one streamer
500    11.0    18   one streamer
 
The reader can draw his own conclusions. 
 
Other observations:  At 100 BPS and full power (20 KV into tank cap) the
streamers were only about a foot long.  At 500 BPS, tank cap voltage is down to
14.8 KV yet the streamer length is approximately 5 times as long.  Obviously
the streamer length seems more correlated to BPS, which correlates to average
power going to the streamers, than to individual bang size. 
 
--Steve