Hydrostatic Force – Curved Surfaces

 The hydrostatic force on curved surfaces is the vectoral sum of

the horizontal and the vertical force as shown below.
 The horizontal force is obtained as before from Fh = γhc Ap using
the projected area of A on a vertical plane.
 The vertical force is equal to the weight of the volume of liquid
above the curved surface.
 For example, the projected area of the cylindrical section below
is rectangular. The horizontal force is the force on the vertical
section AC (FAC) while the vertical force is the weight of the
column of water above the curved section AB (W+FCB).

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Hydrostatic Force – Curved Surfaces
 The location of the horizontal force is also obtained as before
whereby A is the projected area and I is the centroid of the
projected area.
 The location of the vertical force is obtained from the property
that the moment of the resultant force F must be equal to the
moment of the distributed forces Fi about any axis.
 That is, the moment of the total vertical force F is equal to the
moment of the quarter circle area ABC (W) plus the moment of
the rectangular section BCDE (FV).
 The moment arms (centroid) of the rectangular and circular
geometry can be found in the Appendix.

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Buoyant Force
 Buoyancy is one application of the fluid statics concept. For any
submerged body in equilibrium, the vertical force acting on the
top of the body is equal to the weight of water ABCFE above it.
 Similarly, the vertical force acting on the bottom of the body is
equal to the weight of water ADCFE above it (see below).
 The sum of the two opposite vertical forces is then equal to the
difference in weight, i.e., the weight of the body. This is known
as the buoyant force.
 The buoyant force is equal to the weight of the fluid displaced
and the center of buoyancy is at the center of the displaced fluid.

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Application Examples
 All problems involve two-steps: the first step is to compute the
horizontal force and its vertical location, and the second step is
to evaluate the vertical force and its lateral location. The
resultant force is the vectoral sum.
 Some of the applications have the pressure acting beneath the
surface rather than on top of it. The concept is the same as
before, but the volume of water is now the fictitious area above
the body as shown below on the right side.
 An interesting practical application of buoyancy is the
evaluation of the specific gravity of precious metals.

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