High School

The normal respiratory rate of an adult is roughly 12 to 20 breaths per minute. This means that an average adult will complete a breathing cycle of inhaling and exhaling approximately every 4 seconds. Our lungs can store a maximum of 6,000 mL of air when we take a full, deep breath and a minimum of 5,500 mL after an exhale.

If at time [tex]t=0[/tex] you have just exhaled, what is the amount of air in your lungs after 6 seconds?

Explain your answer in detail, including the graph.

Answer :

Final answer:

The volume of air in the lungs at time t=6 seconds, after having just exhaled at t=0, would be estimated at around 5,750 mL assuming a tidal volume of 500mL per breath.

Explanation:

The amount of air in the lungs at any time depends on the breathing cycle. Since it's stated that an average adult completes a breathing cycle roughly every 4 seconds, by t=6 seconds, they would have completed 1.5 cycles. Since the cycle starts off with an exhale (emptying the lungs to the minimum capacity of 5,500mL), we would complete another inhale and half an exhale by 6 seconds.

But we have a vital piece of information missing to provide an exact answer: how much volume is involved in a normal breath (also known as tidal volume). If we consider a normal breath to involve roughly 500mL (this is a typical estimate), then a full cycle would consist of inhaling 500mL, then exhaling the same amount. So at t=6 seconds, one would end up inhaling 500mL and then exhaling half of that amount (250mL). Therefore, we can estimate that the volume of air in the lungs at t=6 seconds would be roughly 5,750mL (5,500mL + 500mL - 250mL).

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