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What variables effect a steam/pressure can crushing project?

I missed a week of school where, in my chemistry class, we did this great big project called the “CanDo Can Crushing Project”. The basics of the whole thing is you take a clean aluminum (soda) can, put a little bit of water in it, and heat it on a bunsen burner. Then when it gets real hot ‘n steamy you use tongs to invert it, or flip it onto a pan of cool water. This crushes it, at least partially. Please, any of this sound familiar? So now I’m stuck writing an essay, the outline of which is meant to be a presentation outline. Like for people who actually collected data for this sort of thing. I understand what makes the can crush (outside pressure, not just the steam-to-water made vacuum), but one of the questions on the outline for my essay is as follows: What variables affect the amount of can crush? Me: “Wha…?” Please somebody be my guiding star and help me, this is worth a huge grade and I’ve gotta feeling the teacher’s going to notice if I bs my way through it, lol.

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Answer #1

Also how much you heat the can, how cold the water bath is, and what kind of can you use would affect how much the can crushes.

Answer #2

I did this project not that long ago. What happens is that when you heat the can the water inside heats, evaporates, and expands. The expanding vapors leave the can to balance out the pressure inside and out of the can. Then you flip the can into cold water and it crushes itself. This is because the cold water lowers the temperature of the vapors in the can condenseing them. This makes the inside of the can have a lower pressure than outside. Normally more air would simply enter the can to balamce the pressure but the opening is under water and it would be a lot harder to suck enough water in to balance the pressure. This high pressure outside the can and the low pressure inside crushes the can. (Hope this helps)

Answer #3

One variable would be the materials used in the cans.

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