Material explosion under pressure

  • #1
Crazymechanic
831
12
Now we knwo that materials tend to rapidly expand (explode) under given circumstances , like a wire subjected to sudden , rapid overcurrent or like a ball of hot flammable gas when heated or otherwise.

Now I wonder what would happen if we had the ball of some heated rapidly expanding gas or mixture inside , and when it would explode ,shortly before that we would apply a pressure which is opposite to that of the ball ? How high we could go in terms of pressure and not break the material that encloses the gas inside the ball.

In other words if one applies ever increasing but perfectly opposite forces and there is a material of some sort in the middle , what then is the limit after which something destructive happens to the material or whatever is in the middle or maybe there is no limit then , if the forces are pefectly opposite to one another?
Now the forces would cancel out in the middle but the pressure would still be there.


Also if we would put a piece of copper wire in a sealed pressurized container, would the sudden surge of amperage needed to blow that wire apart , increase if we would increase the the pressure that surrounds the wire?
Just like water boiling temperature rises proportionally to water pressure.
 
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  • #2
If you heat the copper wire too much, you get a plasma at some point.

For pressure without too much heat: the materials will compress, the chemical structure might change a bit, but the material will still be there (it cannot escape...). As an example, iron in the core of our Earth (a pressure that can be reproduced in the lab) is more dense than iron on the surface, but it is still solid iron.
At some point you reach the density of white dwarfs and then neutron stars, and if you have enough material and pressure you get a black hole.
 
  • #3
so basically if one takes away super high temperatures and radiation damage to a substance or metal then it can sustain enourmous pressures if they are applied structurally right , like a symmetrical pressure equal from all sides to a spherical ball etc?
 
  • #4
Well, what is "sustain"? It will probably lose its structural strength like resistance to sheer stress, but it will still be there (resisting pressure due to its compression).
 

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