[Amps] water cooling

[Dr. David Kirkby]

Ron Youvan wrote:
>> How conductive is pure deionized water? The tube I have here ran close to 
>> 7kv and the water flowed through clear plastic tubing.
> 
>    Pure deionized water is an insulator, 

But like any insulator, it still have some conductivity. According to

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-ionization_of_water

the self-ionisation of water gives a conductivity of 0.055 micro Siemens per 
centimeter. It is temperature dependent too, so I would not trust that value too 
much, but certainly deionised water is not a perfect insulator, so it has some 
conductivity.

I believe the closest you will come to a perfect insulator is a perfect vacuum, 
but you can't get one of them.

It's not too hard to make a perfect conductor, but I don't believe you can make 
a perfect insulator.

> like any other insulator it can be broken down with enough 
> pressure (Voltage) the length of the path determines how much pressure it takes to break down.

The shape of the conductors does too - it is not simply voltage and distance. 
Sharp pointed conductors will create a higher electric field strength than more 
rounded ones, so will break down before rounded conductors with the same voltage 
and spacing.

There's some pictures of the electric field for 4 different transmission (white 
is higher).

http://atlc.sourceforge.net/examples.html

Note how the electric field is highest as the corners.

dave