MODULE in FLUID MECHANICS and

HYDRAULICS

Celeste Acedera De Asis

Master in Civil Engineering
(Water Resources Management
Module 5. Buoyancy and Stability

Overview
This module is intended to provide knowledge on how to calculate the buoyant
force and to determine the stability of the floating bodies. The application of these
topics will also be illustrated through sample problems.

Learning Objectives
The students are expected to be able to
• calculate the buoyant force exerted by a fluid
• determine the stability of floating or submerged objects.
Topics
This module presents the following topics:
• Buoyancy
• Stability of Immersed and Floating Bodies

Introduction
Every day we experienced applications of fluid mechanics. One is when we
enjoyed swimming in the pool or in the beach. We noticed that some objects like
woods or even garbage thrown, are floating in waters. Even our body we felt lighter
while we are swimming. We managed to stabilize our position thus our body floats.

Discussion
Lesson 1. Buoyancy

• The buoyancy force is the resultant of hydrostatic pressure forces exerted on

a domain, under the action of gravity, by the surrounding fluid.
• . A net upward vertical force results because pressure increases with depth
and the pressure forces acting from below are larger than the pressure forces
acting from above.
• In Fig. 5.1, forces F1, F2, F3 and F4 and are simply the forces exerted on the
plane surfaces of the parallelepiped (for simplicity the forces in the x direction
are not shown).
• W is the weight of the shaded fluid volume (parallelepiped minus body2)

Fig. 5.1 Buoyant force on submerged and floating bodies.

Source: Munson, Bruce R., Young, Donald F., Okiishi, Theodore H., Huebsch, Wade W. 2010.
Fundamentals of Fluid Mechanics. United States of America. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

• FB is the force the body is exerting on the fluid.

• The forces on the vertical surfaces, such as F3 and F4 are all equal and cancel,
so the equilibrium equation of interest is in the z direction and can be
expressed as
FB = F2 – F1 –W

If the specific weight of the fluid is constant, then

F2 – F1 = Ƴ (h2 – h1) A

where A is the horizontal area of the upper (or lower) surface of the
parallelepiped, and this can be written as
 FB = Ƴ (h2 – h1) A - Ƴ (h2 – h1) A – V
Simplifying, we arrive at the desired expression for the buoyant force

FB = Ƴ V
Or

FB = ρgV

where
Ƴ is the specific weight of the fluid
V is the volume of the body

• The direction of the buoyant force, which is the force of the fluid on the body,
is opposite to that shown on the free body diagram.
• Therefore, the buoyant force has a magnitude equal to the weight of the fluid
displaced by the body and is directed vertically upward.
• This result is commonly referred to as Archimedes’ principle in honor of
Archimedes (287–212 B.C.), a Greek mechanician and mathematician who
first enunciated the basic ideas associated with hydrostatics.

Archimedes’ principle states that the buoyant force has a

magnitude equal to the weight of the fluid displaced by the body and is
directed vertically upward.

• Buoyant force passes through the centroid of the displaced volume called the
center of buoyancy.
• In the derivations presented above, the fluid is assumed to have a constant
specific weight Ƴ. If a body is immersed in a fluid in which Ƴ varies with depth,
such as in a layered fluid, the magnitude of the buoyant force remains equal
to the weight of the displaced fluid. However, the buoyant force does not pass
through the centroid of the displaced volume, but rather, it passes through the
center of gravity of the displaced volume.
Sample Prob. 1

Source: Munson, Bruce R., Young, Donald F., Okiishi, Theodore H., Huebsch, Wade W.
2010. Fundamentals of Fluid Mechanics. United States of America. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Sample Prob. 2

Source: Cengel, Yunus A. and John M. Cimbala. 2006. Fluid Mechanics: Fundamentals and
Applications. New York. McGraw-Hill.
Lesson 2. Stability
• The stability of a body can be determined by considering what happens when
it is displaced from its equilibrium position.
• A body is said to be in a stable equilibrium position if, when displaced, it returns
to its equilibrium position.
• Conversely, it is in an unstable equilibrium position if, when displaced (even
slightly), it moves to a new equilibrium position.
• For an immersed or floating body in static equilibrium, the weight and the
buoyant force acting on the body balance each other, and such bodies are
inherently stable in the vertical direction.
• If an immersed neutrally buoyant body is raised or lowered to a different depth,
the body will remain in equilibrium at that location.
• Therefore, a floating body possesses vertical stability, while an immersed
neutrally buoyant body is neutrally stable since it does not return to its original
position after a disturbance.
• Case (a) is stable since any small disturbance (someone moves the ball to the
right or left) generates a restoring force (due to gravity) that returns it to its
initial position.
• Case (b) is neutrally stable because if someone moves the ball to the right or
left, it would stay put at its new location. It has no tendency to move back to
its original location, nor does it continue to move away.
• Case (c) is a situation in which the ball may be at rest at the moment, but any
disturbance, even an infinitesimal one, causes the ball to roll off the hill—it
does not return to its original position; rather it diverges from it. This situation
is unstable.
 Fig. 5.2 Stability is easily understood by analyzing a ball on the floor.

Source: Cengel, Yunus A. and John M. Cimbala. 2006. Fluid Mechanics: Fundamentals and
Applications. New York. McGraw-Hill.

Fig. 5.3 An immersed neutrally buoyant body is

(a) stable if the center of gravity G is directly
below the center of buoyancy B of the body,
(b) neutrally stable if G and B are coincident, and
(c) unstable if G is directly above B.

Source: Cengel, Yunus A. and John M. Cimbala. 2006. Fluid Mechanics: Fundamentals and
Applications. New York. McGraw-Hill.
 • Refer to Fig. 5.3, the rotational stability of an immersed body depends on the
relative locations of the center of gravity G of the body and the center of
buoyancy B, which is the centroid of the displaced volume.
• An immersed body is stable if the body is bottom-heavy and thus point G is
directly below point B.
• A rotational disturbance of the body in such cases produces a restoring
moment to return the body to its original stable position.
• An immersed body whose center of gravity G is directly above point B is
unstable, and any disturbance will cause this body to turn upside down.
• A body for which G and B coincide is neutrally stable. This is the case for
bodies whose density is constant throughout. For such bodies, there is no
tendency to overturn or right themselves.

Fig. 5.4 When the center of gravity G of an immersed neutrally buoyant body is not
vertically aligned with the center of buoyancy B of the body,
it is not in an equilibrium state and would rotate to its stable state, even without any
disturbance.

Source: Cengel, Yunus A. and John M. Cimbala. 2006. Fluid Mechanics: Fundamentals and
Applications. New York. McGraw-Hill.

• It is not really appropriate to discuss stability for this case since the body is not
in a state of equilibrium. In other words, it cannot be at rest and would rotate
toward its stable state even without any disturbance. The restoring moment in
 the case shown in Fig. 5.4 is counterclockwise and causes the body to rotate
counterclockwise so as to align point G vertically with point B.

Fig. 5.5 A floating body is stable if the body is bottom-heavy and

thus the center of gravity G is below the centroid B of the body, or
if the metacenter M is above point G.
However, the body is unstable if point M is below point G.

Source: Cengel, Yunus A. and John M. Cimbala. 2006. Fluid Mechanics: Fundamentals and
Applications. New York. McGraw-Hill.

• Refer to Fig. 5.5, if the floating body is bottom-heavy and thus the center of
gravity G is directly below the center of buoyancy B, the body is always stable.
• But unlike immersed bodies, a floating body may still be stable when G is
directly above B.
• This is because the centroid of the displaced volume shifts to the side to a
point B’ during a rotational disturbance while the center of gravity G of the
body remains unchanged. If point B’ is sufficiently far, these two forces create
a restoring moment and return the body to the original position.
• A measure of stability for floating bodies is the metacentric height GM, which
is the distance between the center of gravity G and the metacenter M—the
intersection point of the lines of action of the buoyant force through the body
before and after rotation.
• The metacenter may be considered to be a fixed point for most hull shapes for
small rolling angles up to about 20°.
 • A floating body is stable if point M is above point G, and thus GM is positive,
and unstable if point M is below point G, and thus GM is negative.
• In the latter case, the weight and the buoyant force acting on the tilted body
generate an overturning moment instead of a restoring moment, causing the
body to capsize.
• The length of the metacentric height GM above G is a measure of the stability:
the larger it is, the more stable is the floating body.

(Source: portal.unimap.edu.)
(Source: portal.unimap.edu.)
 Answer the following Problems. GIVEN-REQT-SOLUTION-ANSWER.

1. A solid cylinder is 3ft in diameter, 6ft in height, 1550 lb of weights. If

cylinder is placed in oil (sg=0.9) with its vertical, would it be stable?
2. A uniform wooden cylinder has a relative density of 0.6. Determine the
minimum ratio of diameter to length so that it will float upright in water.
3. A raft is formed of three cylinders, each 1.2 m in diameter and 10 m long,
placed parallel with their axes horizontal, the extreme breadth over the
cylinders being 6 m. When laden the raft floats with the cylinders half
immersed and its centre of gravity 1.2 m above the centre cylinder axis.
(The waterline cross-section thus consists of three parallel rectangles of
length 10 m with a distance of 2.4 m between centre-lines.) Calculate the
metacentric height.

Feedback
The student is a way of familiarization of the different applications of buoyancy
and stability of floating bodies.

Summary
A fluid exerts an upward force on a body immersed in it. This force is called the
buoyant force and is expressed as
FB = Ƴ V
or FB =
ρgV

where FB is the buoyant force,

Ƴ is the specific gravity of fluid, V
is the volume of the fluid
ρ is the density of fluid
g is the gravitational acceleration
Archimedes’ principle states that the buoyant force has a magnitude equal to the
weight of the fluid displaced by the body and is directed vertically upward. Buoyant
force acts upward through the centroid of the displaced volume. The buoyant force,
with constant density, is independent of the distance of the body from the free
surface. For floating bodies, the submerged volume fraction of the body is equal to
the ratio of the average density of the body to the density of the fluid.

References
1. Cengel, Yunus A. and John M. Cimbala. 2006. Fluid Mechanics:
Fundamentals and Applications. New York. McGraw-Hill.
2. Mory, Mathieu. 2011. Fluid mechanics for Chemical Engineering. Great Britain
by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne.
3. Munson, Bruce R., Young, Donald F., Okiishi, Theodore H., Huebsch, Wade
W. 2010. Fundamentals of Fluid Mechanics. United States of America. John
Wiley & Sons, Inc.