spankey666
- Joined Nov 30, 2011
- 91
surely, in the original post, the explosion experienced by the "short" was a combination of copper instantaneously boiling and a certain amount of oxidization, so effectively the copper contacts are acting as a kind of fuel albeit very crude and inefficiant and the rapid rate of expansion and boiling of the copper broke the sound barrier creating the bang and the oxidization causes the visible flash . this couldn't possibly be used inside a piston engine as the solidified copper boiled off at the point of arcing would cause mechanical damage .