Why do contacting metals create sparks?

451 views

Why do contacting metals create sparks?

In: Physics

Anonymous 0 Comments

Just contact won’t do it, you need to shear a chunk off at least one of the pieces. When you scrape a piece of metal off, you break all the bonds between the piece you broke off and the body of the metal. That’s a lot of energy…metals are strong precisely because those bonds are strong. That energy shows up as heat in both the chip and the body. Metal conducts heat really well so the body doesn’t do much, but there’s nowhere in the chip for that heat to go so the chip can get really hot. If it gets hot enough, it glows. If it’s a combustible metal, it will start to burn. Steel sparks are burning steel bits.