What is Pressure: Definition and 1000 Discussions

Pressure (symbol: p or P) is the force applied perpendicular to the surface of an object per unit area over which that force is distributed. Gauge pressure (also spelled gage pressure) is the pressure relative to the ambient pressure.
Various units are used to express pressure. Some of these derive from a unit of force divided by a unit of area; the SI unit of pressure, the pascal (Pa), for example, is one newton per square metre (N/m2); similarly, the pound-force per square inch (psi) is the traditional unit of pressure in the imperial and U.S. customary systems. Pressure may also be expressed in terms of standard atmospheric pressure; the atmosphere (atm) is equal to this pressure, and the torr is defined as 1⁄760 of this. Manometric units such as the centimetre of water, millimetre of mercury, and inch of mercury are used to express pressures in terms of the height of column of a particular fluid in a manometer.

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  1. WMDhamnekar

    MHB Exploring Robert Boyle's Law: Pressure and Volume of CO2

    Robert Boyle's law states that at constant temperature, the pressure of fixed amount ( i-e number of moles n) of gas varies inversely with its volume. Mathematically, it can be written as $p ∝ \frac1V $(at constant T and n) $\Rightarrow p = k_1 \times \frac1V $ where $k_1$is a proportionality...
  2. K

    Atmospheric pressure as a function of altitude

    Summary:: i) Set up a differential equation that describes how the pressure ##p## varies with the distance r from the center of the planet. Hint: You can base your reasoning on static equilibrium and Archimedes' principle. ii)Calculate how the atmospheric pressure p and the density of the...
  3. Z

    Question regarding the Pressure of a gas flowing from a cylinder into balloons

    P1V1=P2V2 (2.5x10^7x4x10^4)/1.85x10^5 , V2 = 5.41x10^6 cm^3 5.41x10^6=4x10^4+7.24x10^3 N N= 741
  4. K

    Velocity, barrel length and bore volume

    Hello. How does a bullet propell inside a bore? What determine its velocity? I read that a bullet in cal .44 propelled by black powder from a 3” barrel is as powerful as a .25 ACP, however with a longer barrel, the velocity increase significant. With a 8” barrel a .44 black powder bullet is as...
  5. A

    Physical state given the critical temperature and critical pressure

    Summary:: I have two substances H2O and CH3OH given at a temperature T and pressure P. I also have critical temperatures and pressures. How can I find the physical states of these substances. My teacher recommended me to use the Antoine equation and find the saturation pressure, but I can't...
  6. cwill53

    Duct Pressure Question: Troubleshooting Complicated Units and Conversions

    These units complicate everything and I simply cannot get them to check out for the life of me. After making some conversions I got to this point:
  7. mktsgm

    Medical How are normal values of blood pressure and glucose determined?

    Blood glucose is measured and compared against a set of standard/normal values (like, fasting 100 mg/dL etc) to determine if a person has hyperglycemia or not. Similarly Blood pressure readings (systolic & diastolic) are also compared against another set of standard/normal values like 120/80...
  8. E

    Pressure force on curved surfaces: vertical component

    hi guys, i can't understand why they calculate F yin this way, the part of floor that is the vertical proyection has less water than the floor in the left so i tought Fy would be less, please can someone explain this concept to me?
  9. P

    What is the relationship between pressure and force inside a spherical object?

    So I already have a solution available to this problem and the link for the solution is: I have understood everything in the video except the part where they are equating the force dF=GM/r²*dm According to my reasoning the inner part of the sphere (the part below the dm element we have taken)...
  10. N

    Pressure in a sealed vessel

    I have a sealed vessel, it is 200 ml, it contains 25 ml of water which is then saturated with CO2 (bubbled through at 0.3 l/min unitil pH drops, ~ 1 h) at rt. The vessel is then heated to 130 °C. I wish to calculate the final pressure of the system. Thus far I have calculated the volume of CO2...
  11. R

    B Does the Torricelli Vacuum Experiment Prove the Strength of Vacuum Forces?

    If Evangelista Torricelli truly created a vacuum, then there would be nothing in it, yet you can see through it which means light is obviously still in there (and who knows what else), right? If there was truly nothing in it, and glass is a highly viscous fluid, and fluids conform to fill empty...
  12. D

    Phase Equilibrium of Liquid and Vapor Under External Pressure

    Suppose you have a container of water at a given temperature T (say normal room temperature) with a vacuum above it. Presumably water will evaporate until there is sufficient vapor that the pressure of it above the water is the SVP for that temperature. Now suppose that there is air above the...
  13. T

    Is this a valid way to calculate capillary force / pressure?

    When figuring out the capillary pressure on a liquid in a tube of a certain cross-section, the typical approach is to consider the Young-Laplace pressure and the curvature etc. I was looking through some of my old notes and I had an equation for the capillary force: fc = γ cosθ dS/dx where γ...
  14. brotherbobby

    Understanding Pascal's Law: Why is Force Greater in One Cylinder Than the Other?

    Answer : Using Pascal's law, this is my answer : ##\color{blue}{\boxed{\vec F_a = \vec F_c < \vec F_b}}##. Reasoning : Forces ##F_a## and ##F_c## are equal because the pressures required at the two cylinders for case (c) is the same as that required in (a). It doesn't matter how many of those...
  15. iVenky

    When a bird flaps it's wings up, doesn't the pressure drop below?

    I am trying to understand how birds fly. If you consider a plane, using it's engine & streamline shape of the wings, it can create a low pressure region above the wings and high pressure region below and this makes it fly and the upward force is proportional to the speed. Birds seem to flap its...
  16. aspodkfpo

    Pressure & Force: Gases, Liquids, Solids

    Sorry if I'm asking too many questions, but I'm currently reviewing a textbook and I'm realising quite a few things that I'm conceptually unsure of, so I'm going to be spewing out questions. If a bottle is shaken, dissolved gas comes out of solutions and builds up pressure inside a bottle. As I...
  17. A

    Hydrostatic pressure of liquid in a cart on an inclined ramp

    Sorry for my English, I'm Spanish. I am not able to make the force diagram for the liquid. I am still in high school and started now little hydrostatic. If someone can give me a light, I would be very .grateful.
  18. thommy

    Why don't airplanes explode due to pressure difference?

    My question might sound trivial (I'm just a first year physics student anyways) , however I really feel the need to get an answer. Since the pressurized cabins inside an airplane are regulated at about 0.8 atm while the pressure outside doesn't surpass 0.2 atm (at 35 000+ ft of altitude)...
  19. prodigylock

    A What pressure would be needed to cause fusion of water?

    So in a DnD story, someone made a bomb by putting 3375ft^3 of water into a 0.5ft radius sphere and caused it to make a nuke. I was thinking if this was possible then what would actually happen, so I spent an afternoon looking for the answer and only got the pressure and density...
  20. R

    Explaining Pressure & Depth Relationships in Fluids Using Halliday & Resnick

    Homework Statement:: Not a homework problem. I need a conceptual explanation. Relevant Equations:: ##p_2 = p_1 + \rho g(y_1 - y_2)## (1) ## p = p_0 + \rho gh## (2) When deriving equation (1) we use the example of a submerged cylinder in static equilibrium with its top at position ##y_1## and...
  21. iVenky

    How does pressure act in all directions if gravity is downward only

    I have a fundamental question about the pressure and I am not sure if my reasoning is correct. Let's take an example of 7 stones shown below. They don't fall because the center of mass of each stone is falling right under the stone below. If I replace the same thing with a liquid, and we know...
  22. cwill53

    Calculating Pressure & Density Proportions with Changing Altitude & Temperature

    I got the correct answer to this question with the following calculations, but I do need some correction in terms of what units I'm integrating across. ρ##\rho ## is density. mtot=n##m_{tot}=nM##, where n is the number of moles of a substance and M is the molar mass of the substance...
  23. A

    Rocket propulsion explained only through pressure differential

    Fluid can exert force to object(move object) only through pressure and tangential stress caused by viscosity. if we look at balloon rocket ,here is Newton 3 law action-reaction,but this 3 law as usual don't tell nothing how fluid really exert force to the ballon.. it exert through pressure...
  24. S

    Partial pressure of oxygen at a certain altitude

    The pressure of oxygen at sea level = ##\frac{20.9}{100} ~\text{x} ~(21.2 ~\text{x} ~ 10^3) = 4430.8~ \text{Pa}## Then I do not know how to calculate the pressure at altitude 7000 m. I tried using P = ρgh (taking ρ as density of air = 1.3 kg/m3) then subtract the result from 4430.8 Pa but got...
  25. dedocta

    Plate Tectonics and Evolutionary Pressure

    I used to work with invasive species in the early 2000's. I saw firsthand the damage a single invasive species can wreak on an ecosystem (Emerald Ash Borer among other insects.) After watching videos of plate tectonics, I began to wonder what would happen to ecosystems on large scales during...
  26. J

    Understanding Vapour Pressure & Temperature Difference

    I have a problem at the very beginning. I don't know how to relate this vapour pressure to the temperature difference. I have read the hint: Recall the idea 7: for dynamical processes, at first, a mechanical equilibrium is reached, which means the equality of pressures; the other equilibria...
  27. DrPython

    Calculate the air pressure needed for a projectile to travel X distance

    Hello! I'm brand new to the physics forum so please excuse any mistakes I make. I'm not even sure if I'm in the right forum section lol. My goal is to create a air cannon to launch a piece of dog food (super overkill) and I have pretty much 0 background in anything post-high school physics. I'm...
  28. Tymofei

    Pressure Differential in Fluid Dynamics: Why More on the '+s' Side?

    Here i added a page from my fluid dynamics book where it shows particle model for deriving the equation. My question is why pressure is more at stream side aka 'positive "s" direction'.I would expected more pressure on the other side because for example when you trying to push a rigid object or...
  29. B

    Pressure loss pipe system: Conversion from known fluid1 to fluid2

    Hello, everyone, I am currently working on the following (real) problem, where I am not getting anywhere. It would be super nice if you could have a look at this. Thank you very much :-). I have a pipe system (Black Box) of which I only know the following things: At a set flow rate with a...
  30. Adesh

    How does a pressure distribution keep the fluid from moving?

    Let’s say we have a unit volume of some fluid in a column on the Earth surface. Let ##\mathbf F## be the gravitational force that acts on the unit volume of the fluid. Consider a small volume element ##\Delta \tau## in the fluid and let’s assume it to be a cuboid with dimensions ##\Delta x##...
  31. A

    Vapour pressure of water vapour in air

    Vapour pressure in a closed system. Why does the partial pressure of water vapour in air equals to the equilibrium vapour pressure of liquid?
  32. R

    Calculate the Temperature and Pressure of a melting point

    Adiabatic increase in pressure implies Tds=0, can someone tell me how to proceed?
  33. T

    External pressure when internal pressure is constant

    So, when I try to solve for expansion work, I don't know nothing about Pext. I've seen multiple times that they just replace Pext with Pint but I don't really get why. I thought about a few situations and I'd like for you to correct me if I'm wrong. If the system in vaccum: the simplest one...
  34. J

    Engineering Hydrostatic Pressure Sluice Gate - Civil Engineering

    Please can you help with a question I am struggling with. I have done as much working out as I could until I was completely stumped: Calculate the concrete volume that is required to keep the sluice gate AB closed, assuming that the only resisting force is the friction between the concrete...
  35. C

    MHB Find the probability of 1 tire with low air pressure P (1)

    1) Let X represent the number of tires with low air pressure on a randomly chosen car. The probability of distribution of X is as follows: X 0 1 2 3 4 P(X) 0.1 0.2 0.4 0.2 0,1 a) Find the probability...
  36. MrInventive

    Can Increasing Helium Density Affect Payload in Space?

    I don't even know where to start... could you please show me step by step
  37. I

    Chemistry What are the partial pressures of each gas in the mixture?

    I've first calculated the partial pressures of each gas: ##N_2: 0.4\times 7.4\times 10^4=3.0\times 10^4 Nm^{-2}\\## ##O_2: 0.35\times 7.4\times 10^4=2.6\times 10^4 Nm^{-2}\\## ##CO_2: 0.25\times 7.4\times 10^4=1.9\times 10^4 Nm^{-2}\\## From here, I do not know how to continue. Could someone...
  38. I

    Question about calculating the minimum temperature in hot air balloons

    First, I tried using the Archimedes principle and calculated the weight of the surrounding air displaced when taking off. ##W = 2500\times 1.29\times 9.81 = 31637.25 N## But then, I got stuck and do not know how to proceed from here on. I don't want the full solution yet but can I get some...
  39. rjomega

    Effect on Volume of a Change in the Pressure of Compressible Gas

    Will the available Volume of oxygen gas for use of patients increase when the pressure decreases from 12.4 MPa to 500 KPa? Is using boyle's law the right way to calculate the available volume?
  40. P

    Pressure required for water discharge

    Hello everyone, I am very interested in knowing the relation to determine the pressure required to push the water upstream. In the attached picture, water is filled inside a tank of volume V and air is constantly flowing inside the tank through an inlet with constant flow rate M. Water should...
  41. E

    Does pressure affect equilibrium vapor pressure (or RH)?

    I'm wondering if I'm on the right track and if anyone is willing to steer me on if not: Equilibrium vapor pressure (EVP—also referred to as saturation vapor pressure) is dependent only on temperature. Outside pressure has no bearing. Now, of course, with lower external pressure (atmospheric)...
  42. Adesh

    I What is the meaning of the free surface in fluid mechanics?

    I’m currently studying Fluid Mechanics, during an analysis I came across this We now consider an example that combines centrifugal force and gravity: a liquid in a drum (centrifuge) rotates with constant angular velocity ##\omega## about a vertical axis. The centrifugal force per unit of...
  43. tanaygupta2000

    Degeneracy pressure of a White Dwarf Star

    So far, I am provided with all the required values for calculation, except N. If N = total number of electrons in star, then using N = mass of star/ mass of an electron should be no problem. Am I right?
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