Boyles Gas Law - Research Paper Example

? Boyle’s Law Boyles law s that when the volume of gas is reduced in the container that holds it, the corresponding pressure increases in directproportion to the reduction of its volume. This is best illustrated with the tire pump whereby air is trapped inside and when the plunger is pushed down, the chamber became smaller so the pressure rises that would force the air out of its exhaust hole going to the tire. Conversely, the same principle applies when an injection is used to harvest blood from us. The air chamber is expanded so the pressure is on the needle to compensate for the decreased pressure inside the needle. Boyle’s law is directly related to to safety in flight. To illustrate how Boyles gas law is directly related to safety in flight, it would be necessary to mention how altitude affects the body and to discuss the relevance of Boyle’s law to it. Our body needs oxygen to sustain life. The oxygen is transported by the hemoglobin molecules in the red cells of our blood. This ability of the hemoglobin to transport oxygen in our body is dependent on the pressure of oxygen in the environment. If the pressure is high, the hemoglobin can carry larger quantities of oxygen while low pressure will tend the hemoglobin to give up oxyben. In regular altitude (altitude a little more above the sea level of which the human body is acclimatize), the blood would normally leave the lungs with 97% saturation of oxygen. As the altitude increases, blood saturation decreases to almost 90 % beginning at 10,000 feet. The simple explanation to this is that as altitude rises, the density of air decreases and conversely, air is most dense on the ground level. The sheets of aluminum and plexiglass in the fighter jets and the pressurized mechanism in commercial airlines recognizes this tendency of air in altitudes and makes the necessary adjustments to maintain an atmosphere that is non-threatening to life. The accident of Lear 35 carrying golfer Payne Stewart and five others in 1999 is directly related to Boyles law whereby the crash was caused by the incapacitation of its crew. It was established that there was a decompression that happened in high altitude as evidenced by the frosted windows of the Lear Jet. Frosted windows in jet are a result of the higher humidity in the cabin before the decompression. When there is a rapid decompression, the frail human body of the crew is now exposed to the pressure of high altitude as dictated by Boyle’s law. As previously mentioned that high external air pressure limits the transport of oxygen through the hemoglobin of the red blood cells in our system, hypoxic hypoxia now sets in. Hypoxic hypoxia is a condition that happens when there is a lack of “available oxygen or partial pressure of oxygen in the breathing air. This is the type of hypoxia experienced when flying in an unpressurized cabin or when flying at altitude in a jet with a cabin pressurized to a cabin altitude above 5000 feet” (Pendleton, 1999).  It is important to note that the degree of severity of hypoxia differs on varying altitude as dictated by Boyle’s Law that states that the volume of any gas is directly proportional to the pressure exerted on that gas. That as the pressure drops, the gas expands and the gas trapped in the human body will expand with a drop in the pressure surrounding the body as in the case of decompression in the Lear 35(Pendleton, 1999). It would help to mention that at 20,000 feet the human body will already collapse with only 5 to 15 minutes of usable consciousness before one dies. At 25,000 feet, usable consciousness is only three to six minutes before one dies. It is equally important to note that commercial airplanes such as Lear 35 that carried gofer Payne Stewart and his five companions are certified to fly as much as 50,000 feet! It is highly probably (one can only deduce from the facts because nobody survived the crash to retell the incident) that the decompression happened at 25,000 feet and above to render the pilot of Lear 35 unconscious and incapacitated that caused the crash of the plane. This phenomenon about Boyle’s Law explains why the pilot and the crew of the Lear Jet became unconscious that caused the crashed. This incident was supported by the sound of the black box recovered where it only recorded the noise of air 30 minutes prior to its crash indicating that the pilots was not conscious that made the jet to crash. According to Linda Pendleton in her experience of conducting hundreds of safety procedure training, the most violated safety measure is the donning of oxygen masks of the pilot. To directly quote her article “FAR 135.89 requires that one pilot have the mask on and in use above 25,000 unless the airplane is equipped with quick-donning masks. In any case, above 35,000 one pilot must be on oxygen at all times. This FAR probably gets violated more than any other for many reasons” (1999). Obviously, the pilots of Lear 35 violated this safety provision as they always do because they were rendered unconscious after the decompression. It is only suffice to say that had the pilots followed the FAR safety procedure that states that pilots should wear their oxygen masks at all times at altitude above 35,000 feet, or that one of the pilot should wear oxygen mask at 25,000 feet altitude they would not have been immediately became unconscious when the decompression happened in mid air because the air in the oxygen mask would continually supply oxygen to the body (air in high altitude is too thin to breathe) to keep them conscious and the play would not have crashed. The pilots obviously had a false sense of security with regard to the structural integrity of the aircraft that they did not expect that decompression would happen but it obviously did. Reference Linda D. Pendleton(November 07, 1999). When Humans Fly High: What Pilots Should Know About High-Altitude Physiology, Hypoxia, and Rapid Decompression. Available at [http://www.avweb.com/news/aeromed/181893-1.html] Read More