Thread: Pump options
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Old 11-07-11 | 07:43 PM
  #19  
neurocop
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Originally Posted by Looigi
Not exactly. Air heats up as it's compressed and cools as it expands. The pump gets hot from some of the work done compressing the air. If you have an air compressor, you might have noticed how hot the line from the compressor to the tank gets. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles%27s_law
True, compressing any gas (air) generates heat and allowing it to expand absorbs heat (that's the "refrigeration cycle" in a nutshell). However, the friction of the gasket sliding along the pump tube also warms up the walls of the pump. If the pump were "frictionless" it wouldn't heat up so much. If all the heat came from merely compressing the air, the tire, pump hose and pump cylinder would all heat up more or less equally. They don't.
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