What Is the Buoyant Force on a Block at the Bottom of a Beaker of Water?

Abstract

I propose that buoyant force be generally defined as the negative of the total weight of the fluids that are displaced, rather than as the net force exerted by fluid pressures on the surface of an object. In the case of a body fully surrounded by fluids, these two definitions are equivalent. However, if the object makes contact with a solid surface (such as the bottom of a beaker of liquid), only the first, volumetric definition is well defined while the second definition ambiguously depends on how much fluid penetrates between the object and the solid surface.

Open PDF

Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jan 01, 2006
Accession Number
ADA633403

Entities

People

  • Carl E. Mungan

Organizations

  • United States Naval Academy

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Abstracts
  • Air Resistance
  • Atmospheres
  • Cold Welding
  • Education
  • Equations
  • Information Operations
  • Military Education
  • O Rings
  • Resistance
  • Space Sciences
  • Standards
  • Students
  • Surface Tension
  • United States Naval Academy

Readers

  • Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)
  • Computer Vision.
  • Mathematics or Statistics