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Experiment No - 3metacentric Height
Experiment No - 3metacentric Height
Experiment No - 3metacentric Height
3Metacentric Height
It is designed to described the stability of a floating cylinder and to familiarize the
student with the concept of buoyancy, metacenter, and metacentric height verification
the stability of the floating bodies such as ships, during the design phase by
theoretical computations and after the ships have been built by inclining experiments.
The stability of a body depends on the metacentric height (GM), which is the distance
between the centriod of the floating body (G) and its metacenter (M). For adequate
stability for the forthcoming voyage, the metacentric height GM must equal or exceed
the minimum required GM for the ship. For a stable ship after removing the applied
small overturning moment, the ship will tend to oscillate about the longitudinal axis,
which is call rolling. On contrary, for an unstable ship, she will tend to tilt further
and finally overturn.
1 Objective
1.1 To experimentally determine the metacentric heights of Floating body with
different conditions of loadings (i.e. different positions of center of gravity) and
compare them with the values computed by theoretical formulas.
1.2 To identify the loading condition for the incipient of unstability (i.e. GM=0),
making use of the values of metacentric heights determined in 1., and to verify this
condition experimentally.
1.3 To experimentally determine the periods of rolling of the floating body for
different loading conditions in 1.
2 Experiment Apparatus
The experimental setup consists of a water tank for floating the experimental boat.
The boat is provided with a weight on a central mast. The position of C.G. can be
located by means of a knife edge assembly. The size of boat can be measured by a
ruler and a vernier caliper.
FG body gdV
V
(1)
FB pdS
S
(2)
If the total force F = FG + FB does not vanish, an unrestrained body will accelerate in
the direction of F according to Newtons Second Law. Therefore, in mechanical
equilibrium weight and buoyancy must precisely cancel each other at all times to
guarantee that the body will remain in place.
Assuming that the body does not itself contribute to the field of gravity, the local
balance of forces in the fluid will be the same as before the body was placed in the
fluid. In particular the pressure in the fluid cannot depend on whether the volume V
contains material that is different from the fluid itself. The pressure acting on the
surface of the immersed body must for this reason be identical to the pressure on a
body of fluid of the same shape, for any volume of fluid tells us that fluid, or
FB FGFluid fluid gdV
V
(3)
explicitly confirming that when the body is made from the same fluid as its
surroundings so that p body = p fluid the resultant force vanishes automatically. In
general, however, the distributions of mass in the body and in the displaced fluid will
be different.
FG M body g 0 FB M fluid g 0
, (5)
Since the total force is the sum of these contributions, one might say that buoyancy
acts as if the displacement were filled with fluid of negative mass. In effect the
buoyancy force acts as a kind of antigravity. The total force on an unrestrained object
is now,
F FG FB ( M body M fluid ) g 0
(6)
If the body mass is smaller than the mass of the displaced fluid, the total force is
directed upwards, and the body will begin to rise, and conversely if the force is
directed downwards it will sink. Alternatively, if the body is kept in place, the
restraints must deliver a force. In constant gravity, a body can only hover motionlessly
inside a fluid (or on its surface) if its mass equals the mass of the displaced fluid.
M body M fluid
(7)
3.4 Stability of oating bodies
The buoyant thrust on a body of weight W and centroid G acts through the centroid of
the displaced fluid volume and this point od application of the buoyant force is known
as the center of buoyancy (B) of the body. For the body in equilibrium, the weight W
F
must equal the buoyant thrust, B , both acting along the same vertical line.
For small angle of heel, the intersection point of the vertical through the new center of
buoyancy B, and the line BG produced is known as the metacenter, M,and the body
thus disturbed tend to oscillate about M. The distance between point G and M is the
metacentric height (GM).
M MG M B
(8)
M G x body gdV
V
(9)
If the total force vanishes F = 0 , the total moment will be independent of the origin of
the coordinate system, as may be easily shown Assuming again that the presence of
the body does not change the local hydrostatic balance e in the fluid, the moment of
buoyancy will be independent of the nature of the material inside V . If the actual
body is replaced by an identical volume of the ambient fluid, this fluid volume must
be in total mechanical equilibrium, such that both the total force as well as the total
M fluid M B 0
moment acting on it have to vanish. Using that we get
and we have in other words shown that the moment of buoyancy is equal and
opposite to the moment of the weight of the displace fluid. This result is a natural
corollary to Archimedes principle, and of great help in calculating the buoyancy
moment. A formal proof of this theorem, starting from the local equation of
hydrostatic equilibrium.
The moment of gravity may be expressed in terms of the center of mass xG of the
body, here called the center of gravity
1
M G xG Mg 0 xG
M x body dV
, (12)
1
M B x B Mg 0 xB
M x fluid dV
, (13)
where xB is the moment of gravity of the displaced uid, also called the center of
buoyancy.
Although each of these moments depends on the choice of origin of the coordinate
system, the total moment,
M ( xG x B ) Mg 0
(14)
will be independent. This is also evident from the appearance of the difference of the
two center positions. A shift of the origin of the coordinate system will affect the
centers of gravity and buoyancy in the same way and therefore cancel out. As long as
the total moment is non-vanishing, the unrestrained body is not in complete
mechanical equilibrium, but will start to rotate towards an orientation with vanishing
moment. Except for the trivial case where the centers of gravity and buoyancy
coincide, the above equation tells us that the total moment can only vanish if the
centers lie on the same vertical line, XG-XB g0 Evidently, there are two possible
orientations satisfying this condition: none where the center of gravity lies below the
center of buoyancy, and another where the center of gravity is above. At least one of
these must be stable, for otherwise the body would never come to rest
Stability can as always only occur when the two centers lie on the same vertical
line,but there may be more than one stable orientation. A sphere made of
homogeneous wood oating on water is stable in all orientations. None of them are in
fact truly stable, because it takes no force to move from one to the other (disregarding
friction). This is however a marginal case.
A oating body may, like a submerged body, possess a stable orientation with the
center of gravity directly below the center of buoyancy. A heavy keel is, for example,
used to lower the center of gravity of a sailing ship so much that this orientation
becomes the only stable equilibrium. In that case it becomes virtually impossible to
capsize the ship, even in a very strong wind.
The stable orientation for most oating objects, such as ships, will in general have the
center of gravity situated directly above the center of buoyancy. This happens always
when an object of constant mass density oats on top of a liquid of constant mass
density, for example an iceberg on water. The part of the iceberg that lies below the
waterline must have its center of buoyancy in the same place as its center of gravity.
The part of the iceberg lying above the water cannot inuence the center of buoyancy
whereas it always will shift the center of gravity upwards
1
A A
( x0 , y0 ) ( x, y )dA
(15)
where dA = dx dy is the area element. Without loss of generality we may always place
the coordinate system such that x0 = y0 = 0. In a ship that is mirror symmetric in a
vertical plane the area center will also lie in this plane.
To discover the physical signicance of the centroid of the waterline area, the ship is
tilted (or heeled as it would be in maritime language) through a tiny positive angle
around the x-axis, such that the equilibrium waterline area A comes to lie in the plane
z = y. The net change V in the volume of the displaced water is to lowest order in
given by the difference in volumes of the two wedge-shaped regions between new and
the old waterline. Since the displaced water is removed from the wedge at y > 0 and
added to the wedge for y < 0, the volume change becomes
V zdA ydA 0
A
A
(16)
In the last step we have used that the origin of the coordinate system coincides with
the centroid of the waterline area (i.e. y0 = 0). There will be corrections to this result
of order 2 due to the actual shape of the hull just above and below the waterline, but
they are disregarded here. To leading order the two wedges have the same volume.
Since the direction of the x-axis is quite arbitrary, the conclusion is that the ship may
be heeled around any line going through the centroid of the waterline area without any
rst order change in volume of displaced water. This guarantees that the ship will
remain in buoyant equilibrium after the tilt. The centroid of the waterline area may
thus be called the ships center of roll.
3.10 The metacenter
Taking water to have constant density, the center of buoyancy is simply the geometric
average of the position over the displacement volume V (below the waterline),
1
V V
( xB yB z B ) ( x, y.z ) dV
(17)
In equilibrium the horizontal positions of the centers of buoyancy and gravity must be
equal xB = xG and yB = yG. The vertical position zB of the center of buoyancy will
normally be different from the vertical position of the center of gravity zG, which
depends on the actual mass distribution of the ship, determined by its structure and
load. The tilt around the x-axis changes the positions of the centers of gravity and
buoyancy. The center of gravity xG =(xG, yG, zG) is supposed to be xed with respect to
the ship and is to rst order in shifted horizontally by a simple rotation through the
innitesimal angle
y G z G
(18)
There will also be a vertical shift, zG = yG, but that is of no importance to the
stability because gravity is vertical so that the shift creates no moment.
The center of buoyancy is also shifted by the tilt, at rst by the same rule as the center
of gravity but because the displacement also changes there will be another
contribution yB to the total shift, so that we may write
y B z B y B
(19)
As discussed above, the change in the shape of the displacement amounts to moving
the water from the wedge at the right (y > 0) to the wedge at the left (y < 0) . The
ensuing change in the horizontal position of the center of buoyancy may according to
be calculated by averaging the position change y - yB over the volume of the two
wedges,
I y 2 dA
A
(20)
is the second order moment of the waterline area A around the x-axis. The movement
of displaced, water will also create a shift in the x-direction,XB = -J/V where
J = xydA which does not destabilize the ship.
The total horizontal shift in the center of buoyancy may thus be written
I
zM zB
V
(21)
This point, called the metacenter, is usually placed on the straight line that goes
through the centers of gravity and buoyancy, such that xM = xG = xB and yM = yG = yB.
The calculation shows that when the ship is heeled through a small angle, the center
of buoyancy will always move so that it stays vertically below the metacenter.
The metacenter is a purely geometric quantity (for a liquid with constant density),
depending only on the displacement volume V , the center of buoyancy xB, and the
second order moment of the shape of the ship in the waterline. The simplest waterline
shapes are, Rectangular waterline area: If the ship has a rectangular waterline area
with sides 2a and 2b, the roll center coincides with the center of the rectangle, and the
second moment around the x-axis becomes,
a b
4 3
I dx dyy 2 ab
a b
3
(22)
If a > b this is the smallest moment around any tilt axis because ab3 < a3b Elliptic
waterline area: If the ship has an elliptical waterline area with axes 2a and 2b, the roll
center coincides with the center of the ellipse, and the second moment around the x-
axis becomes,
b 1 x 2 / a 2
a
4 3
1
I dx y dy
2
ab (1 t 2 ) 3 / 2 dt ab 3
a b 1 x 2 / a 2
3 0
4
(23)
Notice that this is a about half of the value for the rectangle.(Benny Lautrup,1998
2010)
M x ( y G y B ) Mg 0
(24)
M x ( z G z M ) Mg 0
(25)
For the ship to be stable, the restoring moment must counteract the tilt and thus have
opposite sign of the tilt angle Consequently, the stability condition becomes
zG z M
(26)
Evidently, the ship is only stable when the center of gravity lies below the metacenter.
For an alternative derivation of the stability condition
Figure 8 Stability curve for large angles of heel. The metacenter is only useful for
tiny heel angles
where all changes are linear in the angle. For larger angles one uses instead the
righting arm which is the distance between the center of gravity and the vertical line
through the actual center of buoyancy. Instability sets in when the righting arm
reaches zero, in the above plot for about 72 heel. Courtesy John Pike, Global Security
The metacenter is only useful for tiny heel angles where all changes are linear in the
angle.For larger angles one uses instead the righting arm which is the horizontal
distance |yG yB | between the center of gravity and the vertical line through the actual
center of buoyancy. The restoring moment is the product of the righting arm and the
weight of the ship, and instability sets in when the righting arm reaches zero for some
non-vanishing angle of heel.
Case: Floating block
The simplest non-trivial case in which we may apply the stability criterion is that of a
rectangular block of dimensions 2a, 2b and 2c in the three coordinate directions.
Without loss of generality we may assume that a > b. The center of the waterline area
coincides with the roll center and the origin of the coordinate system with the
waterline at z = 0. The block is assumed to be made from a uniform material with
constant density 1 and oats in a liquid of constant density 0.
1 d
0 2c
(27)
d b2
zM
2 3d
(28)
2
d 2b 2
1 1
c 3c 2
(29)
When the block dimensions obey a > b and b/c > 3/2 = 1.2247 the right-
hand side becomes negative and the inequality is always full lled. On the other hand,
if b/c < 3/2 there is a range of draft values around d = c (corresponding to 1= 0
= 1/2),
2 2
2 b d 2 b
1 1 1 1
3 c c 3 c
(30)
for which the block is unstable. If the draft lies in this interval the block will keel over
and come to rest in another orientation For a cubic block we have a = b = c, there is
always a range around density 1=0 = which cannot be stable. It takes quite a bit of
labor to determine which other orientation has smallest metacentric height.
1 I 1 I
y G 1 1
M 0 V
(31)
where I1 is the second moment of the open liquid surface. The metacenter position
now becomes
I 1 I 1
zM zB
V 0 V
(32)
The effect of the moving liquid is to lower the metacentric height (or shorten the
righting arm) with possible destabilization as a result. The unavoidable inertial
sloshing of the liquid may further compromise the stability. The destabilizing effect of
a liquid cargo is often counteracted by dividing the hold into a number of smaller
compartments by means of bulkheads along the ships principal roll axis.
FiFigure9
Tiled ship with
an open
contrainer
filled with
liquid.
Figure10 Stability diagram for the
floating block.
17
AA is the water-line and when the body is given a small tilt by an angle of , two
wedge forces, due to the submergence and emergence of the wedge areas AOA on either
side of the axis of rolling, are imposed on the body forming a couple which tends to
restore the body to its undisturbed condition. The effect of this couple is the same as the
Fb
moment caused by the shift of the total buoyant force from B to B , The new
center of buoyancy.
Fb = W + df df + W = Fb (33)
By moments about;
B, Fb BB = df . (34)
Therefore;
BB = df /F b = df /W = df / (35)
Where
= specific weight of the fluid, and = the volume of the displaced fluid.
2 1 2 1 2
b b b
3 2 3 2 3
AA = b/2, and =
Thus,
1 1 2
b b L b
4 2 3
BB = BM. = , or (36)
1 I
BM Lb 3 /
12
(37)
where: I is the moment of inertia of the water-line surface of the body about the
longitudinal axis.
I
GM BM BG BG
(38)
A
2 dA=Iyycos2 +Ixxsin2 -2Ixysin cos (39)
where Ixx, Iyy and Ixy are the elements of the symmetric matrix
I xx I xy x2 xy
I dA
I yy y 2
I yx A xy
(40)
19
The extrema of () are easily found by differentiation with respect to . They are,
1 2 I xy
1 arctan
2 I xx I yy
(41)
2 1
2
(42)
with the respective area moments I1 = (1) and I2 = (2) The two angles determine
orthogonal principal directions, 1 and 2, in the ships waterline area. The principal
direction with the smallest second order moment around the area centroid has the lowest
metacentric height. If I1 is the smallest moment and the actual roll axis forms an angle
with the 1-axis, we can calculate the moment I for any other axis of roll forming an angle
with the x-axis from
I I 1 cos 2 I 2 sin 2
(43)
Since I1 < I2, it follows trivially that if the ship is stable for a tilt around the rst principal
axis, it will be stable for a tilt around any axis.( Benny Lautrup, 19982010)
4. Experiment Procedure
4.1Record the exact dimensions (width, length, and height) of the boat and weigh the
boat and its accessories by an accurate balance.
4.2Start the experiment by fixing the weight on the mast at the position above the
base of the boat. Record the position of the weight. Use the knife edge assembly or a
suspended string to determine the position of center of gravity (G) of the boat.
2
4.3Fill the tank about 3 full of water and carefully put down the boat in the tank.
With the transverse sliding weight (w) at the center of the boat.
4.5Move the sliding weight laterally a small distance x from the center, move a little
from center both to the right and then to the left (to be averaged later). For each
position of the sliding weight, read angle on the scale with a plumb.
4.6Move the jockey weight back to the center and fasten the pendulum weight to the
central mast by a light string. Apply a small overturning moment to roll the boat.
Measure the time taken for the boat to oscillate about its longitudinal axis about 1
cycle (if possible) for each excitation. Roll the boat again so that about 3-4
measurements of rolling period are obtained for computing the average value for this
condition of the boats weight configuration.
4.8Alter the position of C.G. of the boat by moving the weight for another distance.
Repeat step (5) to (7).
4.9From the recorded data, compute the metacentric height GM by eq.(4) for each
position of the weight on the mast. This is done by first plotting the average value of
for each x on arithmetric graph paper and finding the slope of (x/) for each case.
Compare these values with those calculated theoretically) and comment on the result.
4.10Plot the positions of the central weight read from the vertical scale (Y) vs the
correspond to the incipient of the unstable equilibrium. Verify this prediction
experimentally. Comment on the results.
4.11For each case of load configuration, plot the experimentally determined period of
rolling against GM on graph paper. Comment on the result.