Hydrostatic force on plane surfaces

When a fluid is at rest, there is no relative motion between any two layers of the fluid; no
shear force exists within the fluid. The force acting on a submerged plane surface is only
normal to the area at each point. Several hydraulic structures and their components such
as dam, weir, barrage, etc, impound a large quantity of water at rest. Designing these
structures needs to determine the magnitude of resultant force and its line of action due to
impounding liquid. This chapter deals about how to determine the magnitude of resultant
force and its line of action on the submerged plane surfaces in a fluid at rest.

Hydrostatic pressure on horizontal surfaces

Let a plane surface be placed horizontally in a liquid of specific weight w. The surface is
at a depth h below the free surface of the liquid. The pressure of all the points on the
plane is constant:

The variation of pressure on the surface, shown in Fig., is called pressure diagram.

The magnitude of the resultant force F, on one side of the surface is determined by
integration as given below:

where A is the total area of the surface.

Another critical point in hydrostatic analysis is to determine the line of action of the
resultant force. The line of action is also known as the center of pressure. As similar to
determining the line of action of the resultant under a constant distributed load system,
the moment of the pressure diagram about any axis through the center of pressure is zero.
By taking moment of the hydrostatics force about any arbitrary x or y-axis, as given in
fig, we get

Similarly, the moment of the resultant force which is located at x distance from the y-axis
gives

As at the center of pressure, Mo is equal to M1. Equating () and () yields

in which x is the distance to the centroid of the area. Similarly, it may be proven that the
center of pressure lies at y distance from the x axis. In summary, the center of pressure of
the resultant on a horizontal plane due to a fluid at rest passes through the centroid of the
plane.
Inclined Surfaces

Consider a plane surface of arbitrary shape is submerged in a fluid at rest, at an

inclination of from the horizontal. The plane intersects the free surface at a point O,
shown in Fig., which is taken as the origin of the x and y axes.

In order to determine the resultant force and its line of action, a small fluid element of
area is chosen so that the pressure over it may be assumed to be constant. If x denotes
the width of the element at a depth h, then

As and

The force on the element is

Since all such element forces are parallel, the integral over the area gives the magnitude
of the resultant force acting on one side of the surface. Thus

EQ() indicates that the magnitude of force acting on one side of a plane surface
submerged in a liquid is the product of the area and the pressure at its centroid. The above
expression is valid to a plane surface, which is immersed vertically into a liquid at rest.

Center of Pressure

The point where the line of action of the resultant force of a submerged surface passes
through it is called the center of pressure. To determine the center of pressure of the
inclined surface, the moments of the resultant force about any arbitrary axis must be
equated to the moment of the distributed force on the plane about the same axis. In the
case of the x and y axes, as shown in fig., we get

Where xp and yp are the coordinate of the center of pressure. Rearrangement of EQ()
gives
Since the distributed pressure on the element is and the resultant force obtained by EQ()
, we can get

In which Ixy is the product of interia of the surface about the

..

The parallel axes theorm defines a relationship as given below

Substitution of the above relationship into EQ() yields

To compute yp, equating the moments about the axis gives

By applying the parallel axes theorem, we get

Where Ig is the second moment of the area about its horizontal centroid axis. EQ() may
be rewritten in terms of Ig as:

This equation indicates that as Ig is always positive, hence yp is always equal or more
than y. In words, the center of pressure of an inclined surface is always below the
centroid of the surface. Note that y and yp are distances measured in the plane of surface,
but not in vertical plane.