[ELI5] Can one physically compress water, like with a cyclinder of water with a hydraulic press on the top, completely water tight, pressing down on it, and what would happen to the water?

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[ELI5] Can one physically compress water, like with a cyclinder of water with a hydraulic press on the top, completely water tight, pressing down on it, and what would happen to the water?

In: 1967

69 Answers

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Anonymous 0 Comments

Water incompressible. It just is. Everything beyond that is hypothetical. I would imagined to problem is there will never be a seal strong enough or with tolerances tight enough to not let water out at a certain pressure.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Water incompressible. It just is. Everything beyond that is hypothetical. I would imagined to problem is there will never be a seal strong enough or with tolerances tight enough to not let water out at a certain pressure.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Water incompressible. It just is. Everything beyond that is hypothetical. I would imagined to problem is there will never be a seal strong enough or with tolerances tight enough to not let water out at a certain pressure.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Doesn’t water compress when it gets cold in pipes?

For example, a pipe is holding water at ~4 degrees C and the outside temp drops below 0: The cold water takes up more space than the warm water but is confined to the same volume. Compression. When the pressure is higher than the strength of the pipe, the pipe breaks and floods your home.

If you chill water in a pipe capped at both ends, it explodes because the water pressure is so high. Not because of an outside force like hydrolics, so isn’t it because the water is compressing itself as it gets to freezing?

If not, how does the water pipe capped at both ends explode? If water wasn’t compressible wouldn’t it split the pipe pretty simply between 4 and 0c? Ie not explosively?

Or is the pressure that causes that different than the pressure of an explosive.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Doesn’t water compress when it gets cold in pipes?

For example, a pipe is holding water at ~4 degrees C and the outside temp drops below 0: The cold water takes up more space than the warm water but is confined to the same volume. Compression. When the pressure is higher than the strength of the pipe, the pipe breaks and floods your home.

If you chill water in a pipe capped at both ends, it explodes because the water pressure is so high. Not because of an outside force like hydrolics, so isn’t it because the water is compressing itself as it gets to freezing?

If not, how does the water pipe capped at both ends explode? If water wasn’t compressible wouldn’t it split the pipe pretty simply between 4 and 0c? Ie not explosively?

Or is the pressure that causes that different than the pressure of an explosive.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Doesn’t water compress when it gets cold in pipes?

For example, a pipe is holding water at ~4 degrees C and the outside temp drops below 0: The cold water takes up more space than the warm water but is confined to the same volume. Compression. When the pressure is higher than the strength of the pipe, the pipe breaks and floods your home.

If you chill water in a pipe capped at both ends, it explodes because the water pressure is so high. Not because of an outside force like hydrolics, so isn’t it because the water is compressing itself as it gets to freezing?

If not, how does the water pipe capped at both ends explode? If water wasn’t compressible wouldn’t it split the pipe pretty simply between 4 and 0c? Ie not explosively?

Or is the pressure that causes that different than the pressure of an explosive.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Every liquid is perfectly compressible but for most use cases *assuming* the liquid hasn’t compressed is sufficiently accurate.

Water has a similar squishyness to chalk. Compressing water is about as easy as compressing a lump of chalk – so not particularly easy, but compared to a lump of steel water is very easy to squish.

Very few applications get to the pressures where liquid compressibility is significant. It compresses about 1% per 200 atmospheres of pressure. This is about where hydraulics operate, and honestly that 1% doesn’t matter calculation wise.

However in a water jet cutter, operating at 4000 atmospheres, the water has reduced in volume quite a bit.

In a reasonably modern diesel high pressure fuel system, which operates around 2000 bar (or higher) the fuel compresses by about 30% and accounting for this effect is important in correctly designing the system. It’s one of the few common systems where this effect matters.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Every liquid is perfectly compressible but for most use cases *assuming* the liquid hasn’t compressed is sufficiently accurate.

Water has a similar squishyness to chalk. Compressing water is about as easy as compressing a lump of chalk – so not particularly easy, but compared to a lump of steel water is very easy to squish.

Very few applications get to the pressures where liquid compressibility is significant. It compresses about 1% per 200 atmospheres of pressure. This is about where hydraulics operate, and honestly that 1% doesn’t matter calculation wise.

However in a water jet cutter, operating at 4000 atmospheres, the water has reduced in volume quite a bit.

In a reasonably modern diesel high pressure fuel system, which operates around 2000 bar (or higher) the fuel compresses by about 30% and accounting for this effect is important in correctly designing the system. It’s one of the few common systems where this effect matters.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Every liquid is perfectly compressible but for most use cases *assuming* the liquid hasn’t compressed is sufficiently accurate.

Water has a similar squishyness to chalk. Compressing water is about as easy as compressing a lump of chalk – so not particularly easy, but compared to a lump of steel water is very easy to squish.

Very few applications get to the pressures where liquid compressibility is significant. It compresses about 1% per 200 atmospheres of pressure. This is about where hydraulics operate, and honestly that 1% doesn’t matter calculation wise.

However in a water jet cutter, operating at 4000 atmospheres, the water has reduced in volume quite a bit.

In a reasonably modern diesel high pressure fuel system, which operates around 2000 bar (or higher) the fuel compresses by about 30% and accounting for this effect is important in correctly designing the system. It’s one of the few common systems where this effect matters.

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