Danger - High Voltage!

Kristoph

Kristoph

Kristoph

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Joined
11 May 2007
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Just read this old news story that has found its way to the top of the most read on BBC and it had me thinking..

A) How does this much static charge manage to build up?

and

B) Could this be a plausible explanation for spontaneous combustion?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4252692.stm


An Australian man built up so much static electricity in his clothes as he walked that he burned carpets, melted plastic and sparked a mass evacuation.
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His clothes were measured by firemen as carrying an electrical charge of 40,000 volts, the Reuters news agency quoted Mr Barton as saying.
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I stumbled across this exact same news story on the bbc 10minutes ago... funny how we both found it at the same time considering its 10 years old
Building up static is plausible but 40,000v is a bit too much I think, surely that could kill someone?!?
 
Building up a high voltage is not unusual for a static charge, it has to be several KV to feel it even really. What is unusual is the apparent energy this man has built up, enough to create a hot enough discharge to ignite things. This suggests an unusually high capacitance. Probably a complicated combination of circumstance :)
 
dbeckett said:
I stumbled across this exact same news story on the bbc 10minutes ago... funny how we both found it at the same time considering its 10 years old
Building up static is plausible but 40,000v is a bit too much I think, surely that could kill someone?!?
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The level of voltage doesn't matter, you could have millions of volts going through you and be OK. It is the current that kills you.
 
We need to harness this energy generation to power/recharge personal electronic equipment, such as mobile phones and music players.
 
Very high voltage static charge isn't uncommon, most people have likely been zapped by similar voltage getting out of a car at some point and touching the metal.

More details on carpet needed. If it was very dusty or for some reason had flammable vapour around it, that could be ignited by static electricity. Industrial explosions have occurred when static discharges ignited gas or dust.

Very dubious about melting plastic. Again, more details needed.
 
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Must've looked pretty cool to bystanders, having this guy in a nylon suit walking in and having a fire start around his feet.
 
Ahleckz said:
The level of voltage doesn't matter, you could have millions of volts going through you and be OK. It is the current that kills you.
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Basically yes, and to draw significant current from a static charge requires a considerable capacitance.
 
As said, it's current that kills, not voltage. I think as little as 30 milliamps is enough to kill someone.

Still though, that guy sounds like he could be a superhero in the making, was there any reference to him living near a nuclear power plant as a child? :D
 
Dr.EM said:
Building up a high voltage is not unusual for a static charge, it has to be several KV to feel it even really. What is unusual is the apparent energy this man has built up, enough to create a hot enough discharge to ignite things. This suggests an unusually high capacitance. Probably a complicated combination of circumstance :)
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or a old/cheap carpet from before fire retardant fabrics/plastics where standard:p
 
First thing I thought was "wonder if he got the job?"...

Probably not if it was working with sensitive electrical parts...

Pixel said:
We need to harness this energy generation to power/recharge personal electronic equipment, such as mobile phones and music players.
Click to expand...

I can see that now... "Damn my phone is almost dead" *takes shoes off and shuffles across the carpet* :D
 
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