Understanding Pressure

 A woman wearing high heels sinks further into soft ground than a woman wearing
flat shoes. The reason behind this is the due to the pressure exerted by that force.
 Pressure depends on force, but it also depends upon the area the force is applied to.
 Pressure is defined as the force acting normally or perpendicularly per unit area.

Pressure =

 The SI unit of pressure is the pascal (Pa) or Newton per square meter (Nm-2)

Applications of pressure in Everyday Living

 High and low pressures have been used in different situations.

 The magnitude of pressure exerted on a surface can be increased by : i) applying a
larger force or ii) reducing the surface area of contact.
 Examples to applications of high pressure.
1. A sharp knife to cut an object.
2. Saws, chisels and planes have sharp edges for piercing on object
easily.
3. Spiked running shoes can provide a better grip for athletes.
4. Ice skates to slides easily over on the ice.
 Examples to applications of low pressure.
1. Bulldozers are usually moved by a chain with sharp edges.
2. Heavy lorries and buses are usually fitted with more than four
wheels of larger surface area.
3. Skis are designed to have a large surface area to enables the
skier to move on the snow.
4. Tall buildings are usually built on a base of large surface area.

Example 1

A fruit seller uses a knife with a sharp edge and a cross sectional area of 0.5cm 2 to cut
open a watermelon.

a) If the force applied on the knife is 18N, what is the pressure exerted by the knife on
the watermelon?

b) After that, he cuts open a papaya using the same knife by exerting a pressure of 2.7 X
105 Pa. Calculate the magnitude of force applied to cut the papaya.
Understanding Pressure in Liquids

Pressure in a liquid:
1. Increases with vertical depth.

2. Acts in all directions.

3. Is independent of the shape and size.

4. Increases with density.

Relating Pressure in a liquid to the depth and density of the liquid.

Consider a cylindrical container with liquid of height, h and cross-sectional area A, which
is filled with a liquid of density ρ

Volume of liquid in the container,

V=Ah

Mass of liquid in the container,

m=Vρ
= Ah ρ

Force on point X,
F = weight of the liquid
= mg
= Ah ρg

Pressure on point X,
F
Ρ= A

=
 P = h ρg

Applications of Pressure in Liquids

1. Public water supply system - water storage tank is usually situated higher than all the
houses in that area.

2. The walls of a dam – The walls of a dam increases in thickness downward due to
withstand greater pressure at the bottom.

3. Fire hose used by a fire fighter – A high pressure water is used to put out fire in a high
rise building by accelerating the water with an electric pump before flowing through the
fire hose.

4. IV injection under gravity – The IV bottle is suspended at the optimum height, h to

ensure the fluid gauge pressure of the IV bottle is greater than the pressure in the vein.

Example 1

A submarine has submerged to a depth of 80 m below the sea. Calculate

a) the maximum pressure exerted by the sea water on the submarine.
b) the maximum force acting on the submarine, if the total surface of the submarine is
1200 m2. [The density of sea water = 1.03 x 103 kg m-3]

Solution
a) Planned well through out.

b)

Example 2

A building is supplied with water from a water tank situated on its roof. If the water
pressure at the ground floor is 1.96 x 105 Pa, what is the height of the building?
[Density of water = 1.0 x 103 kg m-3]
Existence of Gas Pressure

 Gases exert pressure in all directions just like liquids.

 Pressure of a gas is due to the collisions of air molecules against the walls of the
container.

 When the frequency of collisions of collisions of the gas molecules on the walls of the
container increases, the gas pressure increases.

Instruments for Measuring Gas Pressure

Manometer

 It is a device to measure the gas pressure.

 It consists of a U-tube filled with a column of liquid (Mercury, water or oil).

Existence of Atmospheric Pressure

 The atmosphere is the layer of mixture of gases such as nitrogen, oxygen and carbon
dioxide that surrounds the Earth.

 The weight of this mass of the atmosphere exerts pressure on the surface of Earth
and on everything on Earth. This pressure is called atmospheric pressure.

 At sea level, air molecules exert a pressure of 1.013 X 10 5 Pa which is also called one
atmosphere (1 atm).

 The atmospheric pressure drops as we ascend above sea level and increases as we
descend below sea level.
Applications of Atmospheric Pressure

Drinking Straw
 When air s sucked out from a drinking straw, the air pressure inside becomes
lower.
 Then the higher atmospheric pressure acting on the surface of the drink pushes
the drink into the drinking straw and enables it to be sucked into the mouth.
 The same principle works for a syringe and rubber sucker.

Instruments for measuring atmospheric pressure

Simple mercury barometer

 A simple mercury barometer can be made from a clean, dry and thick-walled glass
tube about 100cm long.

 It is completely filled with mercury. Any air bubbles inside are removed by inverting
the tube several times and filling it again with mercury.

 The tube is inverted into a dish of mercury with its open end well below the mercury
level.

 The mercury column in the tube drops until its height is about 760mm above the
mercury level in the dish.

 The atmospheric pressure is therefore expressed in terms of millimetres of mercury

or mm Hg or 76 cm Hg. Thus 76cm Hg is equivalent to 1 atm.

 When the atmospheric pressure is low the reading will be less than 76cm Hg and
reading will be more than 76cm Hg if the atmospheric pressure is high.
Applying Pascal’s Principle:
Idea of Transmission of Pressure in a Liquid

1. Hydraulic systems work by using liquids under pressure.

 Two properties of liquids are made use of in the above systems:

i. Liquids are incompressible.

ii. If pressure is applied to an enclosed liquid, then the pressure would be
transmitted to all parts of the liquid.

 If the two openings are of the same surface area, then the force exerted on one
opening will be the same as the other.

 However, if the two openings are of different surface areas, to balance the pressure
on both ends, the force exerted on the surface of the two ends will be different.

 Thus we can use this formula to perform the calculation for a two openings hydraulic
system:
F1
P = A1 =
F2
A2
Since the volume of the liquid inside remain constant.
 Take note that pressure in the hydraulic system is always a constant.

Boyle's Law

 The diagram above explains why changing the volume of a gas sample changes the
pressure of the gas. Boyle's Law is a way of calculating how much the pressure
changes when the volume changes.

 An eighteenth century scientist called Robert Boyle discovered that for a fixed mass
of gas the pressure x the volume of the gas stays the same.

 In other words, as you squeeze a gas its pressure will go up and its volume will get
less.
 Important point: The temperature and mass of gas must stay the same for this to be
true!

We can write this as:

pressure x volume = constant

P1V1 = P2V2

where:

o P1 is the pressure of the gas at the start,

o V1 the volume of the gas at the start and
o P2 and V2 the pressure and volume of the gas at the end.

Exercise
1. Imagine a balloon full of air. The air's pressure is 10N/cm2 and its volume is 300cm3.
You squash the balloon to 200cm3 without any air escaping. What is the pressure of the
air inside the balloon?

2. Figure below shows a hydraulic weight bridge which works on the principle of
Pascal's law.
(i) What is the pressure at B?

(ii) What is the pressure at A?

(iii) What is the weight of the vegetable on the large piston A if the weight bridge is in
equilibrium?

3. The water tank in figure below is 8 m above the tap. What pressure forces the water
out from the tap? (Density of water = 1000 kgm-3)

4. A regularly shaped object is immersed in water of density 1000 kgm- 3.

(i) Calculate the water pressure at the top and the bottom of the object.

(ii) What is the resultant pressure on the object?

5. Calculate the pressure due to water column of height 100 m (Take g = 10 m s- 2 and
density of water = 103 kg m-3). What height of mercury column will exert the same
pressure? (density of mercury = 13.6 x 103 kg m-3)
6. The pressure of water on the ground floor is 40,000 Pa and at first floor is 10,000 Pa.
Find the height of the first floor (density of water = 1000 Kg m-3, g = 10 ms-2)