RE: Stretching the spark (was RE: Official air breakdown voltage?)

["Tesla list" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Original poster: "Marco Denicolai" <marco.denicolai@xxxxxxxxxx>

Hi Steve,

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tesla list [mailto:tesla@xxxxxxxxxx]
> Sent: Tuesday, November 29, 2005 21:44
> To: tesla@xxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: Stretching the spark (was RE: Official air breakdown
> voltage?)
>
> Original poster: Steve Conner <steve@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
>
>  > More, space charge and induced charge are produced
>  > in the gap. The applied
>  > voltage must "win" them and achieve a net increment
>  > in the net gap charge.
>
> Does this matter for Tesla coil discharges? I always
> thought that because they were AC, and high frequency
> at that, the space charge would have no net effect. If
> the space charge hindered spark growth on one
> half-cycle, surely it would aid growth on the next
> half-cycle.

Not necessarily true, because negative discharge and positive discharge
aren't specular versions of each other. Their mechanism is different.

> Good luck with the discharge model! I've been trying
> to keep up but the maths is all a bit too heavy :-(

I think maths is easy compared with that practiced by Paul Nicholson, but
the basic problem is that it's common practice for paper writers to leave
important data and constants unreported. That makes it hard to replicate
their models and their results.

Best Regards