Horrible Pool Accidents, Pump Covers

I just read an article about a horrible injury to a little girl in Minnesota. This happened in a wading pool and it is difficult to read about. Here is a link to the story:

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It is summer and pool time, so take care of the little ones.

Reply to
Norminn
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Jeff Wisnia wrote: ...

... In large pools certainly, they're not atmospheric drains, they're inlets to recirculating pumps so it's dependent on the suction head plus the static head.

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Reply to
dpb

Someone's head(s) should roll over that kind of sloppy oversight and maintenance.

But, I was puzzled by this line from the story:

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In most public pools the drain cover is screwed in and cannot be pulled off. According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the pressure on some pool drains can be as strong as 300 pounds per square inch.

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I don't see how a pool drain could suck with a force of more than one atmosphere (14.7 psi) plus about another 1/2 psi for every foot of pool water depth above the drain.

I think they must have meant a "total force" of 300 pounds sucking something down against a drain opening of about 20 square inches or so.

Jeff (Hoping he hasn't forgotten his high school physics.)

Reply to
Jeff Wisnia

What about the suction being added by the pump which sends the water to the filter?

Reply to
JoeSpareBedroom

wanna bet 300lb/sq ft

Reply to
beecrofter

Yes, and if that's the case, how come a suction well pump can't lift water more than about 25 feet and you have to use a submerged pump for a deeper well?

300 psi is the equivalent of about 660 feet of water depth.
Reply to
Jeff Wisnia

dpb wrote in news:f6jji2$ha$ snipped-for-privacy@aioe.org:

Suction head plus hydrostatic cannot exceed atmospheric pressure plus hydrostatic. In fact suction head really can't get near atmospheric 'cause you'd get cavitation. Remember, there are no negative numbers on an absolute pressure scale.

Reply to
Clark

I'll bet WITH you on that one...

That's why some poor souls have gotten "stuck" onto a pool drain and couldn't generate enough push or lift to get themselfes freed before they drowned.

Jeff

Reply to
Jeff Wisnia

Not really. Each 33' equals 14.7psi, therefore, each foot is .4545454545 psi. The psi for 660' would be 294. Slightly different in salt water.

However, you did say "about", so you're pretty close.

Steve

Reply to
SteveB

"Clark" wrote

Commercial diver's training school was many years and many brain cells ago. I knew there was a .433 in there somewhere.

Steve

Reply to
SteveB

I came back to check and of course(!) you'd already beat me, Jeff... :)

I realized after walking away I had _read_ 300 but _thought_ 30... :(

Me culpa...

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Reply to
dpb

"SteveB" wrote in news:woeji.424926$ snipped-for-privacy@newsfe15.phx:

You're close Steve. Fresh water is 0.433 psi/ft. I believe that 0.45 is commonly used for salt water.

Reply to
Clark

"Jeff Wisnia" wrote

Because of this problem, where I live places had to replace their pool drain covers with the type where long hair could not get caught, and they couldn't trap people the way that little girl was, either. Why aren't they mandatory everywhere, you'd think the insurance company would have insisted on it.

nancy

Reply to
Nancy Young

"SteveB" wrote in news:4dfji.475421$ snipped-for-privacy@newsfe12.phx:

There aren't very many folks that have to be concerned about the small differences.

Where'd you dive? I worked with divers in the GOM a few times.

Reply to
Clark

I believe that even if there were a total vacuum below the water drain, the maximum pressure would be the weight of the water and air above the drain. That's the principle of a mercury barometer (except that there is a vaccum in the tube above the mercury instead of below it), and if water barometers were made 600 feet tall, that would be the principle there too.

I don't think suction really exists. All there is is unresisted pressure, and the pressure is caused by the weight of the atmostphere (and the water, when something is under water.)

Sort of like centrifugal force doesn't really exist (that is equal and opossite to the centripetal force, as elementary school science books sort of said). All there is is inertia that tends to make the something go straight ahead, perpendciular to its axis of rotation, not away from teh center of rotation.

Reply to
mm

I know there was an accident similar to the one in Minnesota not long ago...a year or two? Another child, I believe, had their abdoment ruptured and their intesting sucked out. The little girl in Minnesota, afterwards, asked her mom if she would be on the news. She wondered because she didn't want it to happen to anyone else. That is a heroic child...traumatized beyond belief and then thinking of others. I can't imagine how the parents feel. So, I thought readers might take her hopes to heart and make sure it can't happen where they live.

Reply to
Norminn

Atmospheric pressure in this case is irrelevant.....it was the pump that did the damage. Once her body sealed off the inlet, the pressure would continue to increase unless there was some sort of limiter on the pump or the pump failes. They found her intestines in the pool filter, for gosh sakes!

Reply to
Norminn

What kind of building code can you have if you don't require multiple drain paths and vents to air on a commercial pool? Are the underwater lights mechanic's drop lights?

Reply to
gfretwell

You made the article sound upsetting and I didn't look at it. But we 've been discussing water pressure and pumps and partial vacuums, and if there were no atmospheric pressure, or if it were low like on some planets, I don't believe the pump would have been able to suck as much, no more than the atmospheric pressure plus the water pressure.

Even some bigger and more massive planets than ours, have, I believe, less atomospheric pressure, because that pressure increases as the mass of the planet inceases, but decreases as the mass of the atmosphere decreases.

Atmospheric pressure is invisible, but it's there.

AFter going to to the trouble to warn me about how depressing the artcile would be, you then had to print some of it below, snippped.

Reply to
mm

I think you folks missed the "300 pounds per square FOOT" That is a couple PSI, 55-60" of water, certainly well within the suction head of a pool pump. The fix is simple, a vent to air and/or a second drain path. That's why one or both are required in the code. In my pool I have 3 parallel drain paths and a vent.

Reply to
gfretwell

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