pressure ratings

[paintballuh]

on a piece of pvc, do the pressure ratings show the absolute breaking point, or the highest pressure you can safely take it?

thnx

[Pilgrimman]

The pressure rating is (I think) only 1/3 of the absolute burst pressure, but you should only take PVC up to about 120 psig anyway. The absolute breaking point is much higher than the printed rating, because if someone got a defective pipe, and took it up to that rating and it burst, the manufacturer would be in big trouble! Just keep your pressures reasonable and make good solvent welds, and you should have nothing to worry about.

[noname]

Pilgrimman, are you saying I can sue J-M Manufacturing for having 3/4" Sch 40 PVC, rated to 480 psi, explode at 140 psi? I doubt I ever would, but I could yell at them over the phone for a while.

[chaos]

Pilgrimman, are you saying I can sue J-M Manufacturing for having 3/4" Sch 40 PVC, rated to 480 psi, explode at 140 psi? I doubt I ever would, but I could yell at them over the phone for a while.

Do it

[frankrede]

Pilgrimman, are you saying I can sue J-M Manufacturing for having 3/4" Sch 40 PVC, rated to 480 psi, explode at 140 psi? I doubt I ever would, but I could yell at them over the phone for a while.

They might refund you the 3$ for the pipe, but the pipe isn't made for air pressure

[noname]

I could say there was water in the pipe (technically, there was, because compressing air creates water).

[randompkguy]

whats the difference between having water and air in the pipe (with regards to bursting) i mean doesn't pascal's law state that all fluids distribute force equally among the area they are contained in?

[frankrede]

It still wasn't meant for air due to its failure characteristics.

[randompkguy]

So what happens when it bursts with water as opposed to air? I'm guessing that water decelerates faster than air, so the particles of pvc move slower?

[jimmy101]

So what happens when it bursts with water as opposed to air? I'm guessing that water decelerates faster than air, so the particles of pvc move slower?

Very simple really. Water, and other liquids, are essentially incompressible. Air is very compressible. To put it another way, you really can't store much energy in compressed water. You can store a lot of energy in compressed air.

As an example, consider a 100in³ chamber filled with water. To pressurize it to 10 ATM you would only need to pump a very small volume of additional water into the chamber. Ballpark figure is 0.05in³ of water into 100in³ gives a 10 ATM pressure rise. (Assuming the chamber itself does not expand.) That means you added just 0.05% of the original volume to the chamber.

Now consider the same chamber filled with air. To get the pressure of the chamber up to 10 ATM you need to pump nine times as much air into the chamber as there was to begin with. You have added 900% of the original volume to the chamber.

Now consider what happens when the two chambers fail.

The water filled chamber cracks, 0.05in³ of water leaks out, the pressure drops to atmospheric, the crack stops growing, the chamber sits there and drips water.

The air filled chamber cracks, a little air leaks out, the pressure drops very little since there is 9X more air in the chamber than there should be. The crack propagates, eventually the crack breaks off a hunk of the pipe. The air is still expanding, the air continues expanding until it has grown to 10 times larger than the chamber. During that expansion the pieces of plastic are being accelerated by significant force. Even after the pressure has dropped to 1 ATM the pieces are moving at high velocity.

So, failure of a chamber filled with a liquid is usually a pretty mild occurence. Failure of an air filled chamber results in the release of much more energy.

------------------------------------

The failure pressure of a chamber is independent of what the chamber is filled with. Doesn't matter if the chamber is filled with air, water, or watermelons.

Then why do the PVC pipe manufacturers say there pipe is not rated for compressed gases? That implies that the pressure rating is different for gases versus liquids.

This brings up what Joannardway pointed out on another thread, the failure pressure is not the same as the pressure rating. The failure pressure of a piece of pipe is the same regardless of whether it contains air or water.

The pressure rating is different for air and water because the pressure rating takes into account the consequence (and liability) of the failure. If a pipe pressurized to 200 PSI with water fails it leaks water on the floor. Probably a fairly low liability issue for the pipe manufacturer.

If a pipe pressurized to 200 PSI with air fails something is going to get damaged. If there are people nearby they may get hurt. The liability for that is huge. Therefore, if the pipe makers did quote pressure ratings for compressed gases they would be much lower than for liquids. Not because their is a difference in the failure rate but because there is a difference in the potential for damage and the resulting liability.

[randompkguy]

I vote that this thread be made a sticky, and I think that it should include the all of the things that you need to look out for when buying pipe i.e. NSF -pw (rated for water pressure) , use schedule 40, don't get dwv, etc...and I'd be willing to help make/make it if thats ok with the admin or the mods

[frankrede]

I vote that this thread be made a sticky, and I think that it should include the all of the things that you need to look out for when buying pipe i.e. NSF -pw (rated for water pressure) , use schedule 40, don't get dwv, etc...and I'd be willing to help make/make it if thats ok with the admin or the mods

We do, its called the wiki!

[VH_man]

haha. i was at a cooledge dorm and the sprinkler system was all PVC.

i came to the thinking that they proboably didnt need the sprinkler heads, seeing as the plastic would burst in a fire in the first place.

[Modderxtrordanare]

haha. i was at a cooledge dorm and the sprinkler system was all PVC.

i came to the thinking that they proboably didnt need the sprinkler heads, seeing as the plastic would burst in a fire in the first place.

They make fireproof pvc pipe.

[frankrede]

haha. i was at a cooledge dorm and the sprinkler system was all PVC.

i came to the thinking that they proboably didnt need the sprinkler heads, seeing as the plastic would burst in a fire in the first place.

well by the time thew pvc failed the room wouldn't be in good shape.
Sprinkler heads have a small piece of lead I believe which acts as a valve. so whenb it gets hot enough to melt, the sprinklers will go off.