- #1
JorisL
- 492
- 189
Hello,
A few days ago I read a story in the newspaper.
In a cityblock the voltage of the grid was accidently increased to 400V (instead of the standard 240V).
Clearly quite a few appliances died because of this.
My question is how far can I get explaining these breakdowns using Ohm's law and the Joule effect.
Basically an explanation at the high school level.
If we simply replace the device by a resistor it is clear that through ##P=\frac{U^2}{R}## we get a lot more power that has to be dissipated.
From this we can expect the resistor to melt if we simplify the system in an extremely naive way.
Thanks,
Joris
A few days ago I read a story in the newspaper.
In a cityblock the voltage of the grid was accidently increased to 400V (instead of the standard 240V).
Clearly quite a few appliances died because of this.
My question is how far can I get explaining these breakdowns using Ohm's law and the Joule effect.
Basically an explanation at the high school level.
If we simply replace the device by a resistor it is clear that through ##P=\frac{U^2}{R}## we get a lot more power that has to be dissipated.
From this we can expect the resistor to melt if we simplify the system in an extremely naive way.
Thanks,
Joris