hello all.
this has been interesting as i have a 3/16 plate 24x36 inches that i cut from a larger piece that was once part of a coil. Anyway, how they taught me in engineering school was as follows.
say you have a cube of steel for example. and you stick it in a vice like below
------|| ||----- sorry i cant draw a top and bottom of the cube of steel but pretend they are there and NOT held by the vice. prevend also that ----| and |------- are the vice.
Now, say you heat JUST the cube and can keep the vice the same temp as originally of the cube and vice before heating. what happens is the coefficent of linear expansion and expansion take place in the UP and DOWN directions ONLY. Remember the sides are in a vice. Pretend it is a 3 dimensional vice too so ALL 4 sides are held the same and cant expand but the top and bottom do expand as it is heated. Google linear expansion and you will get the formula.....it depends on the DIFFERENCE in temp beteeen the part that is not heated and the part heated.
Now for what happens..........as the cube starts to cool, ALL sides contract. the tops and bottoms AND ALL the sides contract since there is nothing holding it any longer. so what should happen in theory is the TOP and BOTTOM should go back to where they were originally, BUT the sides will contract by the amount given in the equation for linear expansion and it will fall on the floor since nothing is holding it any longer.
So, what does this say? In the theory, it should not matter if you cool it off sooner.....that really has nothing to do with it. However, what MAY happen is it PREVENTS the further spread of heat to areas the torch didnt touch and acts as our hypothetical vice we used above.
Thats just what i was thinking as i read this.......not real sure thats what is taking place as water is applied to the hot side.
Just my 2 cents
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