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can the weight of millions of balloons be heavy enough to pop the balloons at the bottom? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 1 year ago by hypnotoad__@lemmy.ml to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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Like, say you had a grain silo or some theoretical structure that would allow you to fill the structure as high as you wanted, full of balloons, all inflated with regular air, not helium.

Is there a point where the balloons' collective miniscule weight would be enough to pop the balloons on the bottom? Or would they just bounce/float on top of each other forever and ever?

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[–] HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club 7 points 1 year ago

I don't see them popping beyond the potential friction of rubber on rubber.

The main issue seems to be you have a compressible fluid undergoing compression due to the weight of the rubber in the balloons. As you went down, the balloons would likely look less deflated until they looked not inflated at all. At that point, you might start to get the rubber from the balloons bonding together. As the mass shrinks, you are probably going to get a friction force of the rubber against the silo wall causing shear within the system. This is what will likely cause individual balloons to pop, but at this point the whole mass will be pushed together to a point to not let air escape.