How much water can an average water pipe hold before it explodes or breaks?

Question

I need to know how many gallons or something of water a normal water pipe can hold.. Its for a science essay =/

Answer 1

Water is not incompressible, but it is considered PRACTICALLY incompressible. Here is a website which shows how much pressure plastic pipe can take before it ruptures.

http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/pvc-cpvc-pipes-pressures-d_796.html

Here is a website that shows the bursting pressure of some metal pipes and the formula to calculate the pressure.

http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/barlow-d_1003.html

I hope that this helps you

Good Luck

Answer 2

Joel is right.

Water is incompressible, so you need to know the pressure before the pipe fails.

Otherwise, what you need to know is the volume of the water pipe.

Answer 3

No, you actually need to know pressure (PSI, bars, atmospheres.) This depends on the rating of the pipe (normally several hundred PSI.) This rating is depends on the type of material the pipe is made of (e.g. PVC plastic, copper, steel,) how thick the wall of the pipe is, how the pipe is made, etc.

Answer 4

challenging point. research into google and yahoo. that will could actually help!