# How much force would be required to blow this up?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-force-would-be-required-to-blow-this-up/184667>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [June 27, 2003, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-force-would-be-required-to-blow-this-up/184667 "2003-06-27T00:42:29Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![moejuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/57b2e6/32.png) [@moejuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/moejuck)\
**Post date:** [June 27, 2003, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-force-would-be-required-to-blow-this-up/184667/1 "2003-06-27T00:42:29Z")

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I once saw a guy blow up a rubber hot water bottle until it exploded. Is there any way to calculate the amount of force this he used? Also, is there a way to determine how much force is needed to blow up a baloon, etc…?

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**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\
**Post date:** [June 27, 2003, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-force-would-be-required-to-blow-this-up/184667/2 "2003-06-27T03:27:56Z")

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[That was Franco Columbo](http://www.extrem-sport.com/bodybuilding/columbo1.jpg)

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**Author:** ![Trigonal\_Planar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/0ea827/32.png) [@Trigonal\_Planar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trigonal_Planar)\
**Post date:** [June 27, 2003, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-force-would-be-required-to-blow-this-up/184667/3 "2003-06-27T05:19:03Z")

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I suppose you could take a small piece of the material and perform an emperical experiment wherein you see how much force is required to stretch it to a known, larger area (I envision attaching newton scales on each side of a square piece of material). Then you calculate the un-inflated area and the inflated area and using the value above, you can determine the total force required for that change in (surface) area.

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**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\
**Post date:** [June 27, 2003, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-force-would-be-required-to-blow-this-up/184667/4 "2003-06-27T06:44:21Z")

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Wouldn’t you just attach a pump and a pressure guage that locks in the highest reading and keep pumping till it blows?