Brain Twister

If you put 30 lb of air pressure in a tire while it is off a vehicle and then mount the tire on a vehicle will the added weight placed on the tire increase that tire's internal air pressure? Provide the basis for your answer.

Richard.

Reply to
Richard
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Yes.

IIRC from high-school chemistry, gases were refered to as occupying a certain volume at "STP" - "Standard Temperature and Pressure".

This, then, becomes nothing more than a mathematical equation. All you have to do is move the variables and constants around. That is, in a tire the Volume is roughly fixed. So you place a cetain number of air molecues into the tire when it is off the vehicle - or "unloaded".

Assuming that the ambient temperature remains relatively constant, then the number of air molecues will produce a certain pressure reading.

Now you mount the tire on a vehicle. This applies a portion of the vehicle wieght to the tire. So the tire is now "loaded", and by that I mean that the vehicle load is applying pressure to the tire! Since that original reading happened with no external pressure applied, the nominal pressure reading form the tire should go up as a result of the external force applied to the tire.

Hav>If you put 30 lb of air pressure in a tire while it is off a vehicle and

Reply to
NewMan

If this is a joke it is quite funny (especially if the OP was asking for a high school physics exam answer).

If it not a joke it is even funnier still (as physics works quite differently in your part of the galaxy).

Reply to
Jalapeno

Maybe...and maybe not.

Surely: It's not our job to do your physics homework.

Reply to
Daniel J. Stern

In practice, I believe that the pressure does not rise when weight is added as described.

When the tire is inflated with no weight on it, all the weight is distributed evenly around the tire as the cords pull equally in all directions. When the tire is loaded, the tension of the cords at the bottom is relieved while the cords opposite the ground pull upwards on the bead.

Reply to
Marcus

Probably very slightly. A pressure increase would require a volume decrease, remember P1V1=P2V2 (I don't know how to do subscripts in Netscape!). The volume may decrease very slightly under the normal load a tire is rated for. Now, if you overload the car such that the rim touches the road, then I'd guess you'd reduce the volume enough to make a measurable increase in pressure.

Matt

Reply to
Matt Whiting

Oh come on, give the kid a wrong answer and teach him a real lesson.

Matt

Reply to
Matt Whiting

The volume part of it (that some seem to be struggling with) is exlained by the fact that when a round hoop is compressed into an oval, the inscribed volume is decreased even though the perimeter circumference is exactly the same. The same reason toothpaste comes out of the tube when you start flattening (ovaling) it - you are decreaseing the volume.

BTW - *if* the answer to your question were 'no', then an inflated tire would not support a car - the rim would go to the ground as easily as a deflated tire (or a tire with a huge hole in it).

Bill Putney (To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my address with the letter 'x')

Reply to
Bill Putney

If the internal air volume (or air space) of the tire changes, then yes, the internal PSI will change. Your question can't be answered completely because we no nothing of the specs of the tire in question (truck tire, radial, biased ply, tire size, etc).

If you do google searches for tire "pressure-load" curves you will see that yes, in many cases tires are designed to have a specific PSI for a given axle load. This is to maintain the desired profile of the contact patch and side-walls as the tire rolls. A car tire that you would normally fill to 30 psi would be quite happy with 15 psi if it were used on a grocery cart.

If you are wondering if you should fill your un-mounted tires at a gas station to 30 PSI (and if that pressure will be correct when you subsequently mount the tires on the vehicle) then the answer is yes. However, I typically put 34 PSI in my (300m) tires. Many car tires are spec'd with a max load of 40 to 45 psi.

Reply to
MoPar Man

Don't you listen to Click and Clack [Car Talk, National Public Radio] up in Canada?

Richard.

Reply to
Richard

OK, I'll give you a hint to the answer.

Here's the formula to compute Pressure, Volume, and Temperature under two conditions.

(P1 * V1) / T1 = (P2 * V2) / T2

Now what's changed between the two conditions? The volume, the pressure, the temperature?

Good Luck,

- Russ in Santa Barbara

Reply to
Russell Lombardo

Yes, of course. Where the tire is compressed on the bottom, it no longer is resisting the 30 psig. The ground instead is resisting it. The air pressure change is not at all key to holding up the weight of the car. Let the pressure back down to 30, and you won't notice it. Rather, the car is held up by replacing the tire's hoop tension with that load on the bottom. The tire has to be pushed in to do that. Pushing the tire in compresses the air in it a little. Not much is required to get the job done.

Reply to
Joe

I'll give you a hint. All 3.

Reply to
Joe

Of course not. I didn't listen to those two yutzes when I lived in America, either.

Reply to
Daniel J. Stern

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