Yer average 12V car battery
Discussion
I was watching Edd China take a battery out of a car on Wheeler Dealers, and wondered how much total energy is stored in one. For example, if all the energy was released in a fraction of a second, how much TNT would it be equivalent to?
My chemistry is far too inadequate to work it out but perhaps the thermodynamnic types here might have an idea!
My chemistry is far too inadequate to work it out but perhaps the thermodynamnic types here might have an idea!
Gandahar said:
What fraction of second? 1/10th, 1/1000th or 1/googolplex?
Is this science or bored arse scratching?
Well, we often hear that atom bombs are 'equivalent to X tons of TNT'. There's no timeframe attached to that. As for the rest, no, it's called curiosity, interest and liking to know.Is this science or bored arse scratching?
And besides, if I use my car battery as a bomb I won't be able to drive home afterwards
AW111 said:
Simpo Two said:
Ooh I like your thinking... and Pb is closer to U than the constituents of TNT!
If Einstein is right, it should be exactly the same energy as it's weigh in TNT, or supermodels, or pizza. We just need an anti-battery to combine it with.Would an anti-matter battery have the same polarity, or reverse?
As for the polarity, I'd guess it's reversed by definition...
Prof Prolapse said:
This thread is mental.
You want to know the potential electrical energy in a car battery expressed using the potential chemical energy in Trinitrotoluene in grams as units?
Then for some reason there's talk of time, presumably because someone is fudging their units.
Also typical batteries aren't explosive. The hydrogen gas can build up if a vent is blocked and this detonates. But it's not a closed system, so it's not correct to say the battery had the explosive potential to detonate a car bonnet, when actually it was caused a by product of the energy pumped in by the alternator not being able to escape.
It got interpreted in several ways. The original concept was that if a car battery has enough energy to turn a car engine over for, say, five minutes, what would that be like if it was all released in a fraction of a second? That introduced the issue of time - the faster you release a given amount of energy, the more explosive the effect. TNT is often used as a comparator because few people know what joules per kilonewton cubed or whatver means or feels like. We then moved onto e=mc2, which involves entirely different variables You want to know the potential electrical energy in a car battery expressed using the potential chemical energy in Trinitrotoluene in grams as units?
Then for some reason there's talk of time, presumably because someone is fudging their units.
Also typical batteries aren't explosive. The hydrogen gas can build up if a vent is blocked and this detonates. But it's not a closed system, so it's not correct to say the battery had the explosive potential to detonate a car bonnet, when actually it was caused a by product of the energy pumped in by the alternator not being able to escape.
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