LAUSR

Abstract A statistical thermodynamic viewpoint is employed towards the electro-mechanical properties of current carrying wires under tension. In particular, we consider the loss in the tensile strength of the wire and the tendency to fracture into small segments explosively, in terms of the electronic (relativistic) kinetic energies contributing to the pressure tensor and weakening the metallic chemical binding. A sufficiently violent explosion from a strong current pulse is a conventional manufacturing method for fabricating metallic nano-particles. Such high current fracture explosions are known to often be accompanied by low energy nuclear reactions. We consider the strength of threshold currents for some explicit nuclear reactions from the conventional thermodynamic theory of reaction chemical potentials. Numerical values are provided for important threshold currents.