Posted on 09/16/2005 1:25:38 AM PDT by LibWhacker
SYDNEY (Reuters) - An Australian man built up a 40,000-volt charge of static electricity in his clothes as he walked, leaving a trail of scorched carpet and molten plastic and forcing firefighters to evacuate a building.
Frank Clewer, who was wearing a woollen shirt and a synthetic nylon jacket, was oblivious to the growing electrical current that was building up as his clothes rubbed together.
When he walked into a building in the country town of Warrnambool in the southern state of Victoria on Thursday, the electrical charge ignited the carpet.
"It sounded almost like a firecracker", Clewer told Australian radio on Friday.
"Within about five minutes, the carpet started to erupt."
Employees, unsure of the cause of the mysterious burning smell, telephoned firefighters who evacuated the building.
"There were several scorch marks in the carpet, and we could hear a cracking noise -- a bit like a whip -- both inside and outside the building", said fire official Henry Barton.
Firefighters cut electricity to the building thinking the burns might have been caused by a power surge.
Clewer, who after leaving the building discovered he had scorched a piece of plastic on the floor of his car, returned to seek help from the firefighters.
"We tested his clothes with a static electricity field metre and measured a current of 40,000 volts, which is one step shy of spontaneous combustion, where his clothes would have self-ignited," Barton said.
"I've been firefighting for over 35 years and I've never come across anything like this," he said.
Firefighters took possession of Clewer's jacket and stored it in the courtyard of the fire station, where it continued to give off a strong electrical current.
David Gosden, a senior lecturer in electrical engineering at Sydney University, told Reuters that for a static electricity charge to ignite a carpet, conditions had to be perfect.
"Static electricity is a similar mechanism to lightning, where you have clouds rubbing together and then a spark generated by very dry air above them," said Gosden.
I'd be inclined to blame the carpet, not the static. Modern carpets are flame resistant, so something like a dropped cigarette will not create a self sustaining flame.
I work in a microelectronics fab. There is a story that goes around the plant that there was once a huge problem with wafers being badly damaged by electrostatic discharge.
When the technicians investigated they found that it only occurred in one area of the plant. Digging deeper they traced the problem to one toolset, on one shift and finally to one particular operator. This operator happened to be an attractive female.
The technicians questioned her about what could be causing this problem. After a lot of investigating they found that the silk bras and cashmere sweaters she liked to wear were building up a hell of a charge whenever she moved!
Shocking.
ping
Winny and I lived in a house that ran on static electricity...If you wanted to run the blender, you had to rub balloons on your head. If you wanted to cook, you had to pull off a sweater real quick.
-- Steven Wright
And they say that there no such thing as free energy machine! Get 5 franks on carpeted tradmill and you could power your house!
One characteristic of drives like that is accumulating a charge of static electricity and to counter that, a rake, earthed to ground, was positioned over it to draw off the charge.
Naturally, one of the favorite practical jokes in the plant was to move the rake just far enough away that it no longer worked, and the next man passing by would get hit by a yard-long bolt of static "lightning," which would knock him to the floor.
Those old-timers had, shall we say, a "rough" sense of humor.
This guy sounds like a natural for a Free Republic Admin Mod job.
Hey Mods, one of you guys been to Australia lately? Or did you guys make this up so we can have fun on a real zot thread?
I've been shocked touching a light switch because of my static electricity buildup, but I've never set anything on fire.
…who was wearing a woollen shirt and a synthetic nylon jacket…
This gave the individual in question a bright idea--he lit a wad of newspaper on fire and dropped it into the upstream end of the trough.
Lol... Pray the next man wasn't the boss! 'Course, in those days, the boss was probably in on it.
As opposed to a natural nylon jacket?
"........a current of 40,000 volts...." Sorry, current is measured in amps.
Why not just squirt some water on him?
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