![Airlock in pipes](https://kumkoniak.com/39.jpg)
But, I haven’t mentioned the most obvious source of air. If these occur in an area of the pipe with a pressure below the ambient air pressure, air can leak from outside the pipe into the line. Another potential source of gasses in liquid pipelines is leaks through damaged areas or loose fitting joints. This gas can come out of solution when the fluid is warmed or agitated or if it goes through a chemical reaction. Even the water coming out of the tap often has a certain amount of dissolved air. Most liquids have at least some dissolved gasses. Sometimes they sneak in by being dissolved into the liquid just like carbon dioxide is dissolved in a coke. The first question is: Where does the gas come from? It might surprise you to learn that getting gasses, like air, in liquid pipelines is somewhat inevitable. The first three that come to mind are: (1) Where does the gas come from? (2) How does it get trapped? And (3) Why should I care? We don’t normally get to see inside pipelines and observe how they work, so, I built a little model here in my garage we can use to talk about airlock, how it happens, and why it matters. In fact, if you’re as curious as I am, it just leads to more questions. That’s the answer to the title, but it’s not very satisfying on its own. Put simply, air lock is a constriction in flow that happens when a gas gets trapped in a pipe. Today, we’re talking about air lock in pipe systems. Hey I’m Grady and this is Practical Engineering.
![airlock in pipes airlock in pipes](https://www.plumber24hours.co.uk/images/airlock-in-water-pipes.jpg)
But what happens when one of those assumptions is wrong? One of the most basic assumptions made by engineers who design pipelines is that those pipelines carry only the fluid that’s intended. We neglect the variables that don’t matter and make assumptions about the variables we can’t measure or predict.
![airlock in pipes airlock in pipes](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/i4BWnYZAMCg/hqdefault.jpg)
There are just too many variables in the real world to keep track of them all, so we simplify. Engineering nearly always involves assumptions and simplifications.
![Airlock in pipes](https://kumkoniak.com/39.jpg)