Chapter 3

FLUID STATICS

Shear Forces Normal Forces

(pressure)

Fluid Mechanics, Spring Term 2009

where F is a force normal to area A

Pressure is a scalar quantity

Flow of an
unconfined viscous
fluid down an
incline.

Figure 3.1 (p. 31)

Force balance in the x-direction:

• Flowing viscous fluid exert shear forces.
• Static fluids only exert normal forces.
• Moving fluids (dynamics) will be covered later.
 From last slide:

Divide through by to get

Force balance in the z-direction: Now shrink the element to a point:

Vertical force Vertical force Total weight of wedge This can be done for any orientation !, so
on "A on lower element
boundary = specific weight

(cont!d:)
“For your Culture” (i.e., not required for this course…)
So what is the pressure then?

• Pressure is the average of the normal forces acting

at a point.
= • Differences between normal forces are due to fluid
motion.

In this case, if the force vectors are

equal in magnitude, then
It is possible to have different normal stresses.
Consider a small cubic fluid element that is part of a
larger fluid mass: p=0
Different normal forces in one (coordinate) orientation
are equal to shear forces in another orientation.
 Absolute Pressure, Gage Pressure, and Vacuum
Pressure Transmission
Figure 3.3 (p. 34)
Example of
pressure relations

Hydraulic Lift
Figure 3.2 (p. 32)

In a closed system, pressure changes from one point
are transmitted throughout the entire system
(Pascal!s Law).
• Pressure in a vacuum is p = 0.
• Absolute pressure is referenced to perfect vacuum.
• Gage pressure is referenced to another pressure,
typically atmospheric pressure (most gages measure
relative pressures).

Pressure Variation with Elevation

From figure, note that
Static fluid:
All forces must
balance as there are
no accelerations.
Shrink cylinder to
Look at force balance zero length:
in direction of " l

Figure 3.4 (p. 35)

(from previous slide)

or
 Pressure Variation for a Uniform-Density Fluid
For an incompressible fluid, # is constant.
The pressure-elevation relation derived on the previous slide,
Pressure and elevation at one point can thus be related
to pressure and elevation at another point:

is perfectly general (applies also to variable #).

But if # is constant, the above equation is easy to integrate: for

or

The quantity is known as the piezometric pressure and

is called the piezometric head.

Example 3.3: What is the water pressure at a depth of 35 ft? Example 3.4: What is the gage pressure at point 3 ?
Two step solution:
With the information given, 1) Calculate
all we can calculate is the 2) Calculate
pressure difference between
points 1 and 2.

(Do yourself a favor and work in SI-units!) (relative to atmospheric pressure at point 1)
 Pressure Measurements Find pressure at center of pipe:

Can start either at open end

or inside pipe.

Here we start at open end:

Figure 3.7 (p. 42) p at Change Change p in

Figure 3.6 (p. 41) U-tube manometer open in p from in p from pipe
Piezometer or end 1 to 2 3 to 4
simple manometer Better for higher pressures.
Possible to measure pressure
in gases.

The complete path from Differential Manometer

point 1 to point 2 may
include several U-tubes.

In general:

Figure 3.8 (p. 44)

From example 3.9 (p. 44)

Used for measuring pressure differences between

points along a pipe.
 Example 3.10: Find the change in piezometric pressure
and in piezometric head between points 1 and 2.

The cancel out

to give

(piezometric pressure)

(piezometric head)
( from )

Hydrostatic Forces on Plane Surfaces This figure is absolutely

awful
The white area AB
in the figure is a Line AB represents the
plane of irregular true location of the
shape. surface.
Line A-B is an edge
view of that area. The white surface is not
drawn in its actual
What is the net force location.
due to pressure
acting on the sloping Line 0-0 is horizontal; the white area has been rotated about
plane AB? axis A-B from its proper location. In other words, the apparent
depth of the white area within the fluid is not as it appears.

First, note that hydrostatic pressure increases along y as

(since y is not vertical)
From the definition of pressure: But the first moment of the area is defined as
or

so that the total force on a plane area A is

so that the total force can be written as

or where is the pressure at the centroid of the area.

The boxed equation is known as the hydrostatic force
equation.
or, since # and sin ! are constants We have thus replaced an integral involving a variable
pressure by a constant resultant pressure:

Vertical Location of Line of Action of Resultant So, for the moment about a point at ycp we have
Hydrostatic Force

In English: We wish to represent the distributed pressure

But with and we get
force by an equivalent point force. Where (in the vertical)
does that force act?

The integral on the right-hand side is the second

moment of the area (about point y=0):

2 weights on a beam
supported at ycp
The book just refers to the “parallel axis theorem” to write

Mathematically, I think it is easy to see that using

Identifying as the 2nd moment about y=0

and as the 2nd moment about

We have thus proved the parallel-axis theorem:

Notice that the last term is zero because

Back to the problem at hand:

As an aside, you may recall that

Recall from a few slides ago that

The moment of inertia of an object
about an axis through its center of
mass Icm is the minimum moment so that
about any axis in that direction.
or
The moment about any other
parallel axis is equal to Icm plus the
moment of inertia about distance d or
of the entire object treated as a
point mass located at the center of
Note that at great depth , the difference between
mass.
the centroid and the center of mass gets very small.
Our system of pressures has nothing to do with rotations, but
the equations are of the same form…
 Example 3.12: Now calculate the slant distance between and

Find the normal force

required to open the
elliptical gate if it is
hinged at the top. The slant distance to the hinge is 8m x 5m/4m = 10m, and the
slant distance from the hinge to the centroid is 2.5m. Hence,
First find Ftotal, the total
hydrostatic force acting
on the plate:

With (Appendix p. A-5) we get The two moments about the hinge must add to zero:

Hydrostatic Forces on Curved Surfaces

We could integrate the vector forces along segment AB, but it

is often easier to find equivalent forces on a free body as
illustrated above.
FAC acts at the center of pressure as from previous section,
FCB acts at centroid of area CB, and W acts at the center of
mass of the free body ABC.
 The line of action of the horizontal force is
Example 3.14:

Find magnitude and line of

action of equivalent force F.
Where we just read directly off the figure.
Force balance in x and y:
The line of action for the vertical force can be found by
summing the moments about C (or any other point…)

(notice that we could add a constant to every x-coordinate

since )

From Appendix p. A-5 (Figure A.1):

The complete result is summarized below:

Distance from C to centroid is:

So that xcp is found to be