Testing the burst strength of aluminum foil.

Submitted by poit on March 22, 2004 - 04:00.

Today I decided to build a little thingy to test the burst strength of common aluminum foil. Basically it's a small section of PVC with a valve stem in one end and a hole cut in the other. Blah, blah, blah...big screws... blah, blah, blah, rubber gasket... blah, blah, holding ring.

...and it was just after I finished building the thing that I realized that I loaned the pump that has a pressure gage to Tim and neglected to get it back. *sigh* Aaaaaaaaaaaanyway, I gave it a quick test without knowing what pressure it is. Foil alone bursts pretty easy. It sounds a little like a .22 short (wimpy noise) when the foil disk bursts. The hole it's covering is .5inch (1.27cm). I added a piece of paper (post-it ;) and tried again, but the piece of paper made it so strong I couldn't even break the seal. I'm guessing this corresponds to something at or above 100 psi!

I'm kind of wondering where to go from here...although MONEY could play a big factor in that decision (depends on how long I take to get off my ass and try again). Since I planned on using this system for a hybrid air cannon (setting fire to an air/fuel mixture that's already under pressure) I would most likely make it out of metal...but that would cost a lot and I'd need to go in the country to test it. I'd also have to make a system to fire it. On the other hand I could just play around with it as a plain old air cannon (would need a mechanical system to puncture the seal). Decisions, decisions.

Update: After getting back my pumps I found that the foil/paper diaphragm blows at around 110psi