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An intake pipe to a reservoir is controlled by a valve which automatically closes when the reservoir is full and opens again
when 4/5's of water had been drained off. The intake pipe can fill the reservoir in 4 hours and the outlet pipe can drain it in 10 hours.
If the outlet pipe remains open, how much time elapses between the two instants that the reservoir is fill?
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1. How long will it take to drain the full reservoir to the level of if only outlet pipe works?
Very easy. The rate of the outlet pipe is of the tank volume per hour,
therefore, it will take = = 8 hours.
2. How long will it take to fill the reservoir from the level of if both inlet and outlet pipes works?
The combined rate of filing in this case is = = of the tank volume per hour.
Therefore, the filling at these conditions will take = = = hours = hours = 5 hours and 20 minutes.
3. The entire process, consisting of draining and filling, will take 8 hours + 5 hours and 20 minutes = 13 hours and 20 minutes.
There is a wide variety of solved joint-work problems with detailed explanations in this site. See the lessons
- Using Fractions to solve word problems on joint work
- Solving more complicated word problems on joint work
- Selected joint-work word problems from the archive
Read them and get be trained in solving joint-work problems.
Also, you have this free of charge online textbook in ALGEBRA-I in this site
- ALGEBRA-I - YOUR ONLINE TEXTBOOK.
The referred lessons are the part of this textbook under the topic "Rate of work and joint work problems" of the section "Word problems".