Physics - Classical Mechanics - Exercises on Fluid Statics (part 2)

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Introduction

Hey it's a me again @drifter1!

Today we continue with Physics, and more specifically the branch of "Classical Mechanics", in order to get into Exercises on Fluid Statics. This is part 2, where we will cover the remaining topics.

So, without further ado, let's get straight into it!


Hydraulic Car Jack Example

Consider a hydraulic car jack with a piston of 20 cm diameter. What's the required gauge pressure for lifting a car of 1000 Kg?

A piston is a cylinder and its area of contact with the fluid is a circle. Additionally, the radius of a circle is half its diameter and so r = d / 2 = 10 cm = 0.1 m. Thus, the area A where the pressure will be applied is:

The only forces acting upon the system are the atmospheric pressure, weight of the car and the pressure that needs to be applied for lifting the car. Those are related in the following way:

And so, in the end, the required gauge pressure is:


Buoyancy Examples

Next up, let's apply Archimedes' principle for various cases.

Wooden Plank on Water

Consider a wooden plank that floats above a lake. A 20 Kg box is added on top of it. What's the minimum required volume for the plank, so that it doesn't sink. The density of the lake water is 1 x 103 Kg/m3, whilst the wood has a density of 0.7 x 103 Kg/m3.

First of all, because the plank is already floating and will be floating, we don't need to know or use its mass. We will just substitute the mass with the product of density and volume.

In order to be in equilibrium, the buoyant force exerted by the lake water must equal the weight of the plank and box:

The volume of water that is displaced equals the volume of the plank, and so the buoyant force is:

Substituting the mass of the plank with the corresponding ρwood Vwood yields:

All quantities are known, and so the minimum required volume of the wood is:

Bonus: Knowing the volume, we can now also calculate the mass of the wooden plank which is:

Fraction of Iceberg Below Water

[Image 2]

There's a difference in density between the iceberg and the seawater. The ice in icebergs is formed from freshwater and has a density of about 0.9 x 103 Kg/m3. On the other hand, seawater has a density of 1.03 x 103 Kg/m3.

From their densities we can already conclude that icebergs float, because their density is smaller than that of the seawater. So, what fraction is submerged?

In the post about Buoyancy we related Archimedes' principle with the density and showed that the fraction submerged is given by:

So, approximately 87% or 7/8 of the iceberg is submerged below the water.


Surface Tension Example

Lastly, let's also get into a surface tension application, as we only discussed the topic from a theoretical perspective in the corresponding post.

Let's determine the pressure within a soap bubble. The soap bubble has a diameter of 2 cm and the surface tension coefficient is γ = 0.025 N/m.

A soap bubble is filled with air on the inside and has a thin layer of liquid on the outside, which separates that air from the atmosphere. That liquid is what causes the phenomenon of surface tension.

Atmospheric pressure is applied to the overall spherical area of the bubble, which has a surface area of:

Because the bubble is in equilibrium, the net force is zero, and so the force due to surface tension and force exerted by the atmosphere are equal:

The force due to surface tension on each of the two surfaces of the thin liquid layer is γ(2πr) and so the total force is 2γ(2πr), which gives us:

This is the difference in pressure between the inside and outside of the soap bubble. The pressure within the soap bubble is thus:


RESOURCES:

Images

  1. https://pxhere.com/en/photo/1045542
  2. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Iceberg.jpg

Mathematical equations used in this article, where made using quicklatex.

Visualizations were made using draw.io.


Previous articles of the series

Rectlinear motion

Plane motion

Newton's laws and Applications

Work and Energy

Momentum and Impulse

Angular Motion

Equilibrium and Elasticity

Gravity

Periodic Motion

Fluid Mechanics


Final words | Next up

And this is actually it for today's post!

Next time we will start with Fluid Dynamics...

See ya!

Keep on drifting!

Posted with STEMGeeks



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