https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSizVpfqFtwSomething interesting happens in this video, instead of the gas tube being the point of failure on this ar15 what happens instead is that the barrel becomes warped and bursts from the stress of continuous fire.
I have a hypothesis as to why this happened but I'm not sure about the math required to investigate it
In short, my guess is that the ratio between the gas tube's surface area and its volume means that while it heats up faster it also cools faster when compared to the barrel and so due to the pauses when the shooter reloads the gas tube is allowed to cool while the heat in the barrel cannot dissipate as quickly, thus the thermal stresses eventually build up faster in the barrel.
Anyone able to help me out in testing this hypothesis?