4 ms·
Even if the inside water pressure is the same as the outside water pressure, isn't there a great amount of pressure exerted on the pipe's structure simply by it
by brown9-2 16y ago
Even if the inside water pressure is the same as the outside water pressure, isn't there a great amount of pressure exerted on the pipe's structure simply by it's existence at such deep depths?
In other words, even if it's filled with water at 5000 feet of equal pressure, isn't there still a much greater pressure exerted on the pipe's walls at 5000 feet than there is at 100 feet?
Or am I misunderstanding something fundamental about water pressure?
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- ramchip 16y agoYou just need more numbers/sources. Intuition is a limited tool, especially in physics. According to this ( http://www.calctool.org/CALC/other/games/depth_press http://www.calctool.org/CALC/other/games/depth_press ) the pressure would be around 15 MPa (this isn't hard to calculate by hand either). Consider that the mud/oil pushes 15 MPa, and water the same: that gives 30 MPa of purely compressive stress. Concrete could take this much ( http://www.cement.org/basics/concretebasics_faqs.asp http://www.cement.org/basics/concretebasics_faqs.asp ), and steel even more easily ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tensile_strength http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tensile_strength -- if I'm not mistaken, steel behaves roughly the same in compression and in tension).