Vacuum Bottle Collapse

Marie collapses a bottle
Marie pumps the air out of a plastic bottle.

A Vacu-Vin can be used to pump the air out of a plastic bottle, if the bottle is stiff enough it will suddenly collapse with a loud "whup."

To Do and Notice

Attach the vacu-vin to a stiff plastic bottle.

Pump the air out of the bottle.

Notice that at some point the bottle suddenly collapses with a whump!

What's Going On?

A cylinder shape like the bottle can fail suddenly.
The bottle will dent inward, buckling under the difference in pressure between the outside atmospheric pressure and the inside lower pressure.

Activity developed by Marie Wallum.

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Scientific Explorations with Paul Doherty

© 2000

1 Feb 2000