Electrification of Glass by Fracture

摘要

In 1883,Faraday found that some crystals can be electrified by deformation and cleavage and many researchers reported that the brittle materials such as rock can also be electrified.Nowadays,a new technology was developed to forecast earthquake and collapse of mine well by detecting the electrification of rock.In the paper,we set up an instrument to measure the electrification of the broken glass.We observed the electrification of glass by fracture and the charges carried by the broken glass were measured.It was found that the amount of charges was directly proportional to the broken area of glass and the maximum surface charge density can be reached up to 0.5 μC/m2.By SEM observation of broken surface,we can infer the charges distribute near initial nick.