Comment by throw310822
1 day ago
> the pressure difference at altitude works to hold the window in place
Curious, is the pressure difference actually greater than the force of 800km/h wind pushing on the window? Or is it just for side windows?
1 day ago
> the pressure difference at altitude works to hold the window in place
Curious, is the pressure difference actually greater than the force of 800km/h wind pushing on the window? Or is it just for side windows?
Dynamic pressure of wind is 1/2 p v^2 where p is the air density and v is the velocity.
At sea level p = 1.225 kg/m^3. It goes down as altitude goes up. At sea level the dynamic pressure at 800 km/hr would be about 4.4 PSI.
At 20000 ft the air density is about half that of sea level, so around 2.2 PSI wind pressure. It would be around 1.4 PSI at 35k ft.
At cruising altitude planes are typically about 8 PSI above the outside pressure.
It would be maybe an interesting project for someone more ambitious then me to get a speed vs altitude profile of a typical airline flight and an altitude vs cabin pressure profile and figure at what part of a typical flight the screws on a plug window are resisting the most force.
The outward pressure is about 5-6x greater than the force of air resistance at cruising altitude