Wednesday, 26 June 2013

Pipes and Cistern

Pipes and Cistern
1.    Pipes X, Y and Z take respectively 20 minutes, 15 minutes and 12 minutes to fill a cistern. How much time they would take, if all the three pipes are opened together to fill the cistern?

Answer: 5 minutes.  Apply the formula  XYZ / (XZ + YZ + XY)

2.    Pipes X and Y can fill a tank in 10 hours and 12 hours respectively while pipe Z takes 20 hours to empty the tank. If all the three pipes are opened together, then in how much time the tank will be filled?

Answer: 7 hours 30 minutes. Apply the formula  XYZ / (XZ + YZ – XY)

3.    Pipes A and B can fill a bucket in 12 minutes and 15 minutes respectively. If both the pipes are opened initially for three minutes, after which pipe A is closed, then in how many more minutes pipe B will fill the bucket?

Answer: 8 minutes and 15 seconds
Pipe A in one minute 1/12. In three minutes 3/12 ie ¼ bucket.
Pipe B in one minute 1/15. In three minutes 3/15 ie 1/5 bucket.
Thu both the pipes in three minutes would fill 1/4 + 1/5 = 9/20 bucket.
Remaining 11/20 bucket to be filled by Pipe B alone.
The time taken by Pipe B to do this is (11/20) / (1/15) = 8 ¼ minutes.

4.    A leak at the bottom of a tank can empty the full tank in 6 hours. There is an inlet pipe that fills water at the rate of 4 litres a minute. When the tank is full the inlet pipe is opened and the tank is emptied in 8 hours. What is the capacity of the tank in litres?  

Answer: 5760 litres. ( In questions like the above, where a leak is mentioned, please treat the leak as a pipe that drains the tank)

Normally the leak takes 6 hours to drain a full tank. Keep this as ‘x’ Now when the inlet is opened and pours water, the leak takes 8 hours to drain the full tank. Keep this as ‘y’. If the inlet is opened on an empty tank it would have taken xy / y – x hours to fill the tank. Apply this formula and you get 24 hours to fill the tank.

We are given that the inlet in one minute fills 4 litres. Hence in 24 hours it would fill
4 x 60 x 24 = 5760 litres.  

5.    A cistern has two pipes that fill a tank in 12 minutes and 16 minutes respectively. There is also a drain pipe in the tank. When all the three pipes are opened, the tank gets filled in20 minutes. How long the drain pipe would take to empty a full tank?

Answer: 10 minutes

Let us assume the drain pipe takes ‘x’ minutes to drain a full tank. Then in one minute the following equation arise:  1/12 + 1/16 – 1/x = 1/20 solving this we get in one minute the drain pipe can drain 1/10 of the tank. Hence to drain the full tank it would take 10 minutes.

6.    Pipes A and B can fill a tank in 6 hours and 4 hours respectively. If the pipes are kept open alternately for one hour each, with pipe A starting the schedule, then in how much hour the tank will be full?
Answer: 5 hours

Pipe A is opened first. In the first hour the tank is full up to 1/6 level.
Pipe B is opened next. In the 2nd hour the tank is full upto 1/4 + 1/6 level = 5/12 level.
Thus in 2 hours the tank is full upto 5/12 level.
In four hours the tank will be full upto 10/12 or 5/6 level. The remaining capacity of the tank is 1 – 5/6 = 1/6 level.
This pipe A in the third cycle will fill completely. Thus the total time taken is 5 hours.

7.    A tap can fill a tank in 16 minutes and another tap can empty the tank in 8 minutes. If the tank is already full and then both the taps are opened the tank will be

a)    Filled in 12 minutes                                   b) emptied in 12 minutes
(c)  Filled in   8 minutes                                   d) empties in   8 minutes

Answer: emptied in 8 minutes.

When both the taps are opened the net effect of filling in one minute is
1/16–1/8 = -1/16. The drain pipe takes 16 minutes to drain a full tank. The tank is half full and hence it would take 8 minutes to drain.

                                                            X ---x--- X


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