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Section 8.4 : Hydrostatic Pressure and Force

Find the hydrostatic force on the following plates submerged in water as shown in each image. In each case consider the top of the blue “box” to be the surface of the water in which the plate is submerged. Note as well that the dimensions in many of the images will not be perfectly to scale in order to better fit the plate in the image. The lengths given in each image are in meters.

  1. A sketch of the plate and the water. The water is the shaded region and its surface is the horizontal line across the top. The plate is a rectangle that is 8 units wide and 6 units tall and it hangs vertically with its top edge 1 unit above the surface of the water.
    Solution
  2. A sketch of the plate and the water, with the surface of the water the horizontal line across the top. The plate is a trapezoid that hangs with its longer parallel side at the bottom. The top side is 4 units long and lies right at the surface of the water, the bottom side is 7 units long and the vertical distance between the two is 3 units.
    Solution
  3. 3. The plate in this case is the top half of a diamond formed from a square whose sides have a length of 2.
    A sketch of the plate and the water, with the surface of the water the horizontal line across the top. The plate is a triangle with its point at the top and its base running horizontally along the bottom. The two upper sides are each 2 units long and the point of the triangle is 4 units below the surface of the water.
    Solution
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