Question 81

A tank is emptied everyday at a fixed time point. Immediately thereafter, either pump A or pump B or both start working until the tank is full. On Monday, A alone completed ﬁlling the tank at 8 pm. On Tuesday, B alone completed filling the tank at 6 pm. On Wednesday, A alone worked till 5 pm, and then B worked alone from 5 pm to 7 pm, to fill the tank. At what time was the tank ﬁlled on Thursday if both pumps were used simultaneously all along?

Solution

Let 't' pm be the time when the tank is emptied everyday. Let 'a' and 'b' be the liters/hr filled by pump A and pump B respectively.

On Monday, A alone completed ﬁlling the tank at 8 pm. Therefore, we can say that pump A worked for (8 - t) hours. Hence, the volume of the tank = a*(8 - t) liters.

Similarly, on Tuesday, B alone completed ﬁlling the tank at 6 pm. Therefore, we can say that pump B worked for (6 - t) hours. Hence, the volume of the tank = b*(6 - t) liters.

On Wednesday, A alone worked till 5 pm, and then B worked alone from 5 pm to 7 pm, to fill the tank. Therefore, we can say that pump A worked for (5 - t) hours  and pump B worked for 2 hours. Hence, the volume of the tank = a*(5 - t)+2b liters.

We can say that  a*(8 - t) =  b*(6 - t) =  a*(5 - t) + 2b

a*(8 - t) = a*(5 - t) + 2b

$$\Rightarrow$$ 3a = 2b   ... (1)

a*(8 - t) =  b*(6 - t)

Using equation (1), we can say that

$$a*(8-t)=\dfrac{3a}{2}*(6-t)$$

$$t = 2$$

Therefore, we can say that the tank gets emptied at 2 pm daily. We can see that A takes 6 hours and pump B takes 4 hours alone.

Hence, working together both can fill the tank in = \dfrac{6*4}{6+4} = 2.4 hours or 2 hours and 24 minutes.

The pumps started filling the tank at 2:00 pm. Hence, the tank will be filled by 4:24 pm.