Puzzling question pertaining to the law of conservation

[ian24ua]

A friend of mine from work asked me this question and I wanted to see some feedback answers from others. Concerning the law of conservation of energy. Say you compress a spring, therefore it is storing that potential energy. Then you rap it in a wire mesh so it keeps that compressed spring shape. The wire is made up of a different material that does not react with acid. Then you take that setup and drop it into a pool of acid. The acid desinigrates, eats up, the spring. Where did that built up potential energy go?

 

[House_Cat]

Using simple language, and not doing a complete chemical analysis, I maintain that the stored energy in the spring helped dissolve the spring.

Your spring was under stress. The chemical bonds of the metallic crystal structure were more easily broken by the acid at the points where the stress existed. Less energy was required from the chemical reaction of the acid with the metal to dissolve the spring as a result of the stresses in the structure.

You can say, therefore, that the stored energy was used to assist in dissolving the metal.

 

[zorro]

My answer:

at some point the spring it thin enough and it brokes; then the potential energy is transformed in heat.

Regards

Z

 

[harsha_jois]

Hi. I feel both the answers are correct. We must consider the energy stored. It actually generates heat even if its not in the acid. heat always weakens the bonds of compounds. with the acid the PE behaves like a catalyst to speed up the dissolving of the spring.
We have done some experiment on this but I can't recall the specifics. cheerio...

 

[ricksidd]

Then you rap it in a wire mesh so it keeps that compressed spring shape.

The tension builded up in a wire mesh to hold the spring must gets released while the spring gets eats up.....
also there are two different processes are in action
1. eating up of spring
2. spring storing PE and wire mesh

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