I am confused by the above.
If you fill a container fully with a liquid, the slightest thermal expansion will translate to deformation of the container. If the container is rigid (e.g. glass) then it will fail (rupture).
Otherwise, at a constant temperature, and assuming no new gas is being generated (e.g. fermenting taking place) the internal pressure will be constant.
If sparkling wine has 5 bar in the bottle, no way will be affected because even going to outer space will just make the differential 6 bar.
You get the same argument with scuba cylinders. Earth to outer space just increases the differential from 200 bar to 201 bar.
@Cobalt Not really. Just because a container won’t fail itself doesn’t mean that whatever is used to keep it closed can take the differential (even a metal jerrycan can blow a cap). And you don’t want to fill a container really to the brim, you want to leave some space (gas) inside. Just follow instructions as proper technique depends on the construction.
Since aart mentioned cork degradation, I assume he was worried about cork being pushed out. Not bottle failing. If a cork is secured by agraffe, I would take it. If it isn’t for some reason, I would get some. Without it, it could easily blow by just sitting in a hot aircraft still at the airport.
Fair enough. The point of failure is whatever is weakest, and the cap/lid/cork might very well be it.
The point I was trying to make is that when external pressure goes down, say half, a liquid expands very little, while a gas expands a lot (twice the volume)
So a container trying to contain the pressure needs to expand a little to equalise the pressure of it is filled by liquid, but a lot if it is filled with a gas.
Harmless experiment – fill two balloons, one with air and one with water. Full them to a bit below the point where they burst. Go flying. The air ballon will burst, the water balloon won’t. Fill another balloon with half air and half water, again to a bit below bursting point. It will burst.
Either fly in wellies, or put them in buckets.
FWIW, I don’t agree the baloon compares with a glass bottle.
In a baloon, the flexibility of the container will keep the internal pressure almost equal to the external pressure, which will eventually push the container to it’s elastic limit.
In a glass bottle, due to the rigidity of the container, the contents sees virtually nothing happening as the vehicle travels from surface to outer space. The cork might pop, if that was retained marginally.
You are right – any container will expand the contracting force from container plus the external pressure equals the internal pressure.
A very elastic container expands a lot. A stiff container doesn’t. When you reach the elasticity limit, it bursts.
Elastic container + air → bad news. Elastic contrainer + fluid —> ok
Stiff container —> good as long as you don’t reach the burst limit.
So it all depends on what that burst limit is. Champagne generates 5-6 bars of pressure, the bottle can withstand quite a bit more than that, and the cork is wire-locked to the bottle. It won’t burst from increasing the pressure differential by 0.5 bar.
A pack of potato crisps, however…
A crisp packet is yet different from both a bottle and from a baloon.
It will offer almost no resistance to expansion, until the material is tight, and then it will be almost like the glass bottle.
It may not burst even in outer space… I have been to FL210 (about 45% of surface pressure) with nothing blowing up, so another factor of 2x is plausible.
OTOH I avoid crisps because they are greasy and make stains everywhere 
And crisp packets are harder to open when they are blown up like a balloon, too, difficult to grip the sides :-)
This question comes up about bicycle tyres too, but the thing is, my bicycle has 100psi tyres. Taking them to outer space would only increase the differential to 115psi (which they can take) so no, I wouldn’t bother deflating them to put them in the plane.
Peter wrote:
I have been to FL210 (about 45% of surface pressure) with nothing blowing up, so another factor of 2x is plausible.
I can confirm that. Our cargo holds are not pressurised and until now, flying up to FL450, nothing we had in there has “exploded” so far. No bottle (beer, water, wine, Champagne,…) no beverage can, not even bags of crisps or peanuts. The bags seem to be better now than 20 years ago because I remember that in the C421 they could be heard going “pop, pop, pop” in the forward baggage compartment once we climbed above FL150 or so. First time it happened it was a bit scary.
There are only two things I need to be careful with: Bottles of shampoo in my overnight bag (no worry any more because I found a particularly strong one which I refill) and my fountain pen. The latter can make a big mess when it is not full of ink already at FL50 which is easily exceeded inside the pressurised cabin.
If your cargo hold is not pressurised (I am amazed!!) then the temperature inside will drop massively too, due to the gas law whose name I can’t remember. Probably not to -56C but it can’t be far short. That will greatly decrease the pressure in any container containing any gas.
Peter wrote:
…due to the gas law whose name I can’t remember.
That’s one (small) factor, but the big one is ambient temperature. This can be a problem because on longer flights below -30 degrees Celsius things start to freeze. Like the sandwiches or fruit baskets for the return flight…
Our rear cargo hold, which is the big one anyway, is not so bad because some smart guy at Cessnas (yes, they do have some of those too) thought about routing the exhaust flow of the cabin through there. Temperatures can still drop slightly below freezing level, but not enough to ruin the food and beverage supplies.
