Here's a Prince Rupert's drop actually breaking a hydraulic machine...and here's a video that discusses its strange properties.
Found at the Thompson Blog.
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Here's a Prince Rupert's drop actually breaking a hydraulic machine...and here's a video that discusses its strange properties.
Too bad my instructors for material science never discussed Prince Rupert's drop.
ReplyDeleteWhile the dynamics of the forces within a Prince Rupert's drop are not the same as in concrete, they are a good demonstration of working with compressive and tensile forces in a brittle material
As the video notes, concrete tensile strength is about 10% of it compressive strength.
So while designing reinforced concrete members is straightforward, it requires identifying where the member is in compression or tension.
Although I doubt the school budget would permit damaging expensive testing equipment, that's a COOL video!
All pretty much over my head, but I like to watch stuff like this.
DeleteFollowed the link, and this comment below the video caught my attention.
ReplyDelete"Glassblower here: we hate these. Not because they’re hard to make or anything, but because they have a habit of popping off randomly and tiny flying shards of glass can break other glass. Also they pop off with a lot of force behind them so we have to store them in a metal box so nobody loses an eye. Any vibration to the tail can cause a spontaneous explosion of Rupert’s so simply speaking in a room of them can lead to one popping in the box which leads to all or most of the others in the box popping. And if you need them for a specific purpose, like a show, there’s absolutely no guarantee you won’t go in to set up and find all the drops have blown up in the night. I watched one poor glass blower SUFFER before he gave up and made fake ones lol. I learned from his misery. We were in an educational institute though so he had to wear full welders gear and a suit when making them and could only do it when he was alone (shop tech would hang out in the back where he could see but not be reached by glass). And the shop is 80-90 degrees in winter so that outfit was roasting the poor dude. Haha no thanks"