B Trying to understand hydrostatic pressure with different vessel widths

Click For Summary
Hydrostatic pressure remains consistent across vessels of different diameters, such as 1 meter and 1 centimeter, due to the principle that pressure is determined by the weight of the liquid column above, not the cross-sectional area. Even with extreme reductions in diameter, such as 1 millimeter or smaller, the pressure at a given depth remains the same. While the total weight of water in larger pipes increases, the pressure distribution does not change. At atomic scales, however, the behavior of pressure may differ due to specific atomic properties, complicating the analysis. Overall, for standard vessel sizes, hydrostatic pressure is uniform regardless of diameter.
abrek
Messages
14
Reaction score
1
TL;DR
hydraulic pressure at minimum pipe diameter
2024_08_24_0xi_Kleki.png


will the hydrostatic pressure be the same on the vessels shown with a different diameter of 1 meter and 1 centimeter? and will it be the same in both vessels if the first pipe has a diameter even less than 1 millimeter, 1 thousandth of a millimeter, 1 atom?
 
Physics news on Phys.org
Yes. Same pressure. PSI = pounds per square inch. Regardless of the pipe diameter, you can think of the weight of a thin vertical column of liquid. If you double the cross sectional area of that column, you also double the weight, so the change cancels out.
 
When you get down to atomic distance scales these rules are likely to break down. But the answer will depend on a lot of specific things, like which sort of atoms, etc. There's no simple answer in the nanoscale cases.
 
  • Like
Likes Lord Jestocost, russ_watters, erobz and 1 other person
abrek said:
will the hydrostatic pressure be the same on the vessels shown with a different diameter of 1 meter and 1 centimeter?
As already covered by @DaveE the answer is yes. The weights of the two water pipes will be different (more water total means a heavier pipe+water combination), but the pressure distributions will be the same.
 
Hello, I'm joining this forum to ask two questions which have nagged me for some time. I am in no way trolling. They both are presumed obvious, yet don't make sense to me. Nobody will explain their positions, which is...uh...aka science. I also have a thread for the other question. Yes, I'm questioning the most elementary physics question we're given in this world. The classic elevator in motion question: A person is standing on a scale in an elevator that is in constant motion...