Buoyant Force | AP Physics B

Buoyant Force
• If you submerge a beach ball
underwater, you expect a force to
bring it to the water’s surface

Here, FB Equals Gravitational Force

Since the sphere of water remains stationary,
buoyant force has the same magnitude as
gravitational force, but it points upwards

• The buoyant force is supplied by

the body of water
o Thus, FB depends strictly
(a) (b)
Beach Ball Rising to Water’s Surface on the body of water
When a beach ball is submerged underwater, a Not the
force pushes it to the water’s surface. submerged object!
o For instance, our sphere
• The force responsible for this of water and our beach
phenomenon is the buoyant force ball (of equal volume)
• Consider an arbitrary sphere of experience the same FB!
water, in the middle of a grander
body of water:

The Water Sphere and Beach Ball Experience

Sphere of Water in a Body of Water Equal Buoyant Forces
We will focus on this arbitrary sphere of water As long as the water sphere and the beach ball
sitting in the middle of a grander body of water. occupy the same volume, they will experience
the same buoyant force. This occurs because FB
depends on the mass of displaced water, not the
• The sphere of water doesn’t mass of the submerged object.
move
o Thus, there must be no • So, to be clearer:
net force acting upon it o FB = mH2O * g
• In other words, the downwards o FB = buoyant force
gravitational force is cancelled mH2O = mass of displaced
by some upwards force water
o The buoyant force! g = gravitational constant
o It has the same magnitude • If we submerged a larger ball, the
as gravitational force mass of displaced water would
But it points increase, and FB would increase
upwards • Unfortunately, it’s not always
convenient to measure the mass
of displaced water

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 Buoyant Force | AP Physics B

o Recall the density • Will it sink, or will it float?

equation: o When we looked at the
m “sphere of water”
o ρ=
v example, FB equaled
o And, by extension: gravitational force
ρV = m There was no net
o So, we can substitute ρV movement
for m in our FB equation Our object, water,
FB = ρVg and our fluid,
o Remember, “m” was the water, were the
mass of displaced fluid same
So, ρ is the o This isn’t the case
density of fluid anymore
And V is the o While FB depends on the
volume of displaced water, gravity
displaced fluid depends on the
o Fortunately, Vobject = submerged object
Vdisplaced fluid, always o So we have our upwards
So you just need force:
to remember to FB = ρH2OVH2Og
use the fluid’s ρ o And our downwards
force:
Sample Problem Fg = msalt shakerg
• Suppose you submerge a salt o Whichever is larger will
shaker in water prevail
o It’s volume is 1x10-4 m3 o When the object was a
o And we want to find the water sphere, Fg = mH2Og
FB acting upon it Thus, Fg and FB
were the same, but
not anymore

Submerged Salt Shaker

• FB = ρVg
o ρH2O = 1000 kg/m3
o VH2O = Vsalt shaker
o g = 10 m/s2
• FB = (1000)(1x10-4)(10)
FB = 0.1 N

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© 2019 J Co Review, Inc., Accessed by Guest on 02-26-2019