Question

What are the different types of pressure ?

Answer 1

Hint: We know that pressure can be defined as the force applied on an object per unit surface area of the object. There exists different types of pressure like atmospheric pressure, absolute pressure, gauge pressure, vacuum pressure, and differential pressure.

Complete answer:
Pressure is defined as the force that is applied perpendicular to the cross section area of the object per unit surface area of the object. Let us define and understand various types of pressure.

Absolute zero pressure: We consider absolute zero pressure as a base or reference point for measuring pressure. The value of pressure at absolute zero pressure is zero, which can also be considered as the pressure of vacuum. We cannot define a pressure that has value less than the absolute zero pressure.

Ambient pressure: It can be defined as the pressure of the surrounding medium, in which the object is placed, like liquid or gas, on the object.

Atmospheric pressure: Atmospheric pressure, also known as the barometric pressure is defined as the pressure within the atmosphere of earth. The value of the ambient pressure at sea level is equal to $1\;atm$ or $101325\;Pa$ which is considered a standard base value.

Gauge pressure: The pressure that we measure relative to the atmospheric pressure is known as gauge pressure. Gauge pressure above the value of atmospheric pressure is positive and that below the atmospheric pressure is negative.

Absolute pressure: It is pressure on an object that we have measured considering the absolute zero pressure as the reference. It can also be defined as the sum of the gauge pressure and the atmospheric pressure. As the value of gauge pressure cannot be below absolute zero pressure, we can say that the value of absolute pressure is always positive.

Vacuum pressure: The pressure which is calculated below the atmospheric pressure is known as vacuum pressure. Hence, the negative value of the gauge pressure is the vacuum pressure.

Differential pressure: Differential pressure is basically defined as the difference of the pressure between two given points.

Note:We must not get confused between types of pressure and types of pressure systems. Pressure systems are defined as the areas in Earth’s atmosphere which have relatively high or low pressure compared to the surrounding air. Pressure systems are mainly divided into high and low pressure systems.