A friend's little boy slipped her lighter unseen into her microwave just before she put a cup of tea into it to heat it up. She then went into his bedroom to change his nappy.
Apparently the explosion lifted her off her feet. Quite a bit of the kitchen wall was missing, the microwave door vaporised except for the hinges and the glass tray went out through the opposite window and travelled several hundred feet into the field next door to her house. They found the sparker for the lighter in the bottom of what was left of the microwave chamber (which is how the fire brigade worked out what had happened) but no trace of the cup of tea was ever found...
I would expect the explosion had more to do with the lighter fuel than the metal. That will normally just make it spark and crackle somewhat, and perhaps burn depending on what things are made of in the oven.
Yep, the microwawes must have heated up and ignited the gas, then the metal casing of lighter (if it was the metal one) worked pretty much like frag grenade.
Microwave can't heat up propane. It heats only the moisture. Then again, you don't need to heat up the propane for it is quite combustible at room temperature.
What happened in there is this:
Microwave heated up the moisture inside the metal and plastics (that's why you can't put every kind of plastic container in it). Moisture in a lighter's plastic expanded and deformed it enough so the fumes can escape, and moisture in the metal parts produced sparks. (actually, small explosions)
Instant 4th of July.
DaddyHoggy wrote:
...but no trace of the cup of tea was ever found...
Real experiment to do with a microwave - take a glass mixing bowl and turn it upside down inside the microwave, take a piece of cork from a bottle of wine (i.e. proper cork - not a plastic one) and set fire to it. Now it should just smoulder rather than burning with flame - once it's smoking nicely put it in the microwave underneath the glass bowl - close door - wait 30s or so (this is a bit of guess work it varies from cork to cork) - what should happen is that the smoke builds up in the containment of the bowl and a little bit of convection occurs - then microwave on full power and if you've got it just right you'll get a lovely plasma storm inside the bowl...
YMMV
And of course there's the classic - calculating the speed of light using a microwave and cheese slices...
Microwave can't heat up propane. It heats only the moisture. Then again, you don't need to heat up the propane for it is quite combustible at room temperature.
Im thinking the metal might spark the propane and boom!
I shot him back first. That is to say, I read his mind and fired before he would have fired on me. No, sir, he wasn't a fugitive.
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