Oxygen cylinder pressures
Oxygen cylinder pressures
(OP)
Say we have an oxygen cylinder 8"diameter 50" tall (not sure of the exact dimensions). The pressure inside is at 2600 psi. If I find the area of inside the tank 8 x pi x 50= 1256, do I take 1256sq" x 2600 psi to find the total amount of force exerted inside the tank as 3,265,600 lbs, or is it still 2600 lbs?
Anthony
Anthony





RE: Oxygen cylinder pressures
Take a look at this.
h
RE: Oxygen cylinder pressures
of course one interpretation of total force would consider that the pressure is acting in many directions, so the net force (thinking of force as a vector) would be very different to the above calculation ... it would in fact depend on something quite different to your calculation (a hint, it would involve pressure but nt as you're applying it).
think about it, post if you want another clue
RE: Oxygen cylinder pressures
The total amount of force exerted is the total area times the force. Total force isn't a very useful number, and I don't think it would ever need to be calculated in the real world. Since looking for homework help is against forum rules, I'll politely assume that you are trying to calculate the forces that are exerting stresses on the cylinder. The link MintJulep provided has the equations you need.
-b
RE: Oxygen cylinder pressures
RE: Oxygen cylinder pressures
RE: Oxygen cylinder pressures
RE: Oxygen cylinder pressures
anyways, now we understand where yo're coming from, and what interests (and limitations, i'm assuming you'r not a trained engineer) you have lets give some constructive help.
your simple calc shows that pressurised tanks are indeed bombs. but other than being an impressively large number, i don't know quite what it shows. Force is a simple concept to grasp, unfortunately perhaps energy is a more useful engineering term. the energy inside the pressure vessel is something like pV (pressure*volume) ... this is dimensionally correct, but it's not my field and someone else will correct me within a nanosecond. it would be interesting to see how many sticks of dynamite this is equal to. this energy would be released if the tank exploded for some reason ... exploded, you'd better add in something for the acetylene reaction (as this'll release energy too.
but this only means something if the tank explodes, and it probably would be quite devastating in a closed environment. if you knock the valve off, the acetlyene will jet out of the cyclinder. here there'd be a force of p*A (pressure* the area of the valve). and the jet would have a velocity of something like sqrt(2*p/rho) ... 1/2*rho*V^2 = pressure (rho = density of gas, related to the pressure; pressure is strictly tank pressure-ambinent pressure, but near enough tank pressure for your question. it'd be interesting to see how the tank would react with the exhaust stream ... something like a balloon with the end released !! here, you'd have the force (pA) accelerating the tank (m*a, m=the mass of the tank = weight/g)
RE: Oxygen cylinder pressures
-b
RE: Oxygen cylinder pressures
gas cylinder safety
returns lots of hits. I suspect that you would be able to find some interesting pictures too.
RE: Oxygen cylinder pressures