Tutorial 11

a) A cube of oak wood with very smooth faces normally floats in water. Suppose you
submerge it completely and press one face flat against the bottom of a tank so that no
water is under that face. Will the block float to the surface? Is there a buoyant force on
it? Explain.
b) You have probably noticed that the lower the tire pressure, the larger the contact area
between the tire and the road. Why?
c) In hot-air ballooning, a large balloon is filled with air heated by a gas burner at the
bottom. Why must the air be heated? How does the balloonist control ascent and
descent?
d) You drop a solid sphere of aluminum in a bucket of water that sits on the ground. The
buoyant force equals the weight of water displaced; this is less than the weight of the
sphere, so the sphere sinks to the bottom. If you take the bucket with you on a lift that
accelerates upward, the apparent weight of the water increases and the buoyant force
on the sphere increases. Could the acceleration of the lift be great enough to make the
sphere pop up out of the water? Explain.
e) Which has a greater buoyant force on it: a 25 cm3 piece of wood floating with part of its
volume above water or a 25 cm. piece of submerged iron? Or, must you know their
masses before you can answer? Explain
f) The purity of gold can be tested by weighing it in air and in water. How? Do you think
you could get away with making a fake gold brick by gold-plating some cheaper
material?
g) You push a piece of wood under the surface of a swimming pool. After it is completely
submerged, you keep pushing it deeper and deeper. As you do this, what will happen
to the buoyant force on it? Will the force keep increasing, stay the same, or decrease?
Why?
h) An old question is “Which weighs more, a kilogram of feathers or a kilogram of lead?”
Will a kilogram of feathers balance a kilogram of lead on opposite pans of an equal-
arm balance? Explain, taking into account buoyant forces.
i) Suppose the door that opens into a room makes an airtight but frictionless fit in its
frame. Do you think you could open the door if the air pressure outside the room were
standard atmospheric pressure and the air pressure inside the room was 1% greater?
Explain
j) At a certain depth in an incompressible liquid, the absolute pressure is p. At twice this
depth, will the absolute pressure be equal to 2p, greater than 2p, or less than 2p? Justify
your answer.
k) You take an empty glass jar and push it into a tank of water with the open mouth of the
jar downward, so that the air inside the jar is trapped and cannot get out. If you push
the jar deeper into the water, does the buoyant force on the jar stay the same? If not,
does it increase or decrease? Explain.
l) Two identical buckets are filled to the brim with water, but one of them has a piece of
wood floating in it. Which bucket of water weighs more? Explain.
m) An ice cube floats in a glass of water. When the ice melts, will the water level in the
glass rise, fall, or remain unchanged? Explain.
Exercises
Section 12.1: Gases, Liquids, & Density
1) On a part-time job, you are asked to bring a cylindrical iron rod of length 86.0 cm and
diameter 2.30 cm from a storage room to a machinist. Will you need a cart? (To answer,
calculate the weight of the rod.)
2) A cube 5.0 cm on each side is made of a metal alloy. After you drill a cylindrical hole
2.0 cm in diameter all the way through and perpendicular to one face, you find that the
cube weighs 6.30 N. (a) What is the density of this metal? (b) What did the cube weigh
before you drilled the hole in it?
3) A uniform lead sphere and a uniform aluminum sphere have the same mass. What is
the ratio of the radius of the aluminum sphere to the radius of the lead sphere?
4) A hollow cylindrical copper pipe is 1.70 m long and has an outside diameter of 3.90 cm
and an inside diameter of 2.70 cm. How much does it weigh?

Section 12.2: Pressure in a fluid

5) Scientists have found evidence that Mars may once have had an ocean 0.800 km deep.
The acceleration due to gravity on Mars is 3.71 m/s2. (a) What would be the gauge
pressure at the bottom of such an ocean, assuming it was freshwater? (b) To what depth
would you need to go in the earth’s ocean to experience the same gauge pressure?
6) (a) Calculate the difference in blood pressure between the feet and top of the head for
a person who is 1.65 m tall. (b) Consider a cylindrical segment of a blood vessel 2.00
cm long and 1.50 mm in diameter. What additional outward force would such a vessel
need to withstand in the person’s feet compared to a similar vessel in her head?
7) A barrel contains a 0.170 m layer of oil floating on water that is 0.270 m deep. The
density of the oil is 590 kg/m3. (a) What is the gauge pressure at the oil–water interface?
(b) What is the gauge pressure at the bottom of the barrel?
8) A U-shaped tube with both arms open to the air has a 35.0 cm column of liquid of
unknown density in its right arm. Beneath this liquid and not mixing with it is glycerin
that extends into the left arm of the tube. The surface of the glycerin in the left arm is
12.0 cm below the surface of the unknown liquid in the right arm. What is the density
of the unknown liquid?
9) You are designing a diving bell to withstand the pressure of seawater at a depth of 200
m. (a) what is the gauge pressure at this depth? (You can ignore changes in the density
of the water with depth.) (b) At this depth, what is the net force due to the water outside
and the air inside the bell on a circular glass window 30.0 cm in diameter if the pressure
inside the diving bell equals the pressure at the surface of the water? (Ignore the small
variation of pressure over the surface of the window.)
10) The liquid in the open-tube manometer in Figure below is mercury, y1=3.00 cm, and
y2=7.00 cm. Atmospheric pressure is 980 millibars. What are (a) the absolute pressure
at the bottom of the U-shaped tube; (b) the absolute pressure in the open tube at a depth
of 4.00 cm below the free surface; (c) the absolute pressure of the gas in the container;
(d) the gauge pressure of the gas in pascals?
11) An electrical short cuts off all power to a submersible diving vehicle when it is 30 m
below the surface of the ocean. The crew must push out a hatch of area 0.75 m2 and
weight 300 N on the bottom to escape. If the pressure inside is 1.0 atm, what downward
force must the crew exert on the hatch to open it?
12) A tall cylinder with a cross-sectional area 10.0 cm2 is partially filled with mercury; the
surface of the mercury is 6.00 cm above the bottom of the cylinder. Water is slowly
poured in on top of the mercury, and the two fluids don’t mix. What volume of water
must be added to double the gauge pressure at the bottom of the cylinder?
13) A cylindrical disk of wood weighing 45.0 N and having a diameter of 30.0 cm floats
on a cylinder of oil of density 0.850 g/cm3 Figure below. The cylinder of oil is 75.0 cm
deep and has a diameter the same as that of the wood. (a) What is the gauge pressure at
the top of the oil column? (b) Suppose now that someone puts a weight of 91.0 N on
top of the wood, but no oil seeps around the edge of the wood. What is the change in
pressure at (i) the bottom of the oil and (ii) halfway down in the oil?

14) You are doing experiments from a research ship in the Atlantic Ocean. On a day when
the atmospheric pressure at the surface of the water is 1.03×105 Pa, at what depth below
the surface of the water is the absolute pressure (a) twice the pressure at the surface and
(b) four times the pressure at the surface?
15) Hydraulic Lift I. For the hydraulic lift shown in Figure below, what must be the ratio
of the diameter of the vessel at the car to the diameter of the vessel where the force F1
is applied so that a 1520 kg car can be lifted with a force F1 of just 125 N?
16) Hydraulic Lift II. The piston of a hydraulic automobile lift is 0.30 m in diameter. What
gauge pressure, in pascals, is required to lift a car with a mass of 1200 kg? Also express
this pressure in atmospheres.
17) Early barometers contained wine instead of mercury. On a day when the height h of the
liquid in the barometer tube is 750 mm for a mercury barometer, what is h for a
barometer that uses wine with density 990 kg/m3?

Section 12.3: Buoyancy

18) A 900 N athlete in very good condition does not float in a freshwater pool. To keep him
from sinking to the bottom, an upward force of 20 N must be applied to him. What are
his volume and his average density?
19) A rock has mass 1.80 kg. When the rock is suspended from the lower end of a string
and totally immersed in water, the tension in the string is 12.8 N. What is the smallest
density of a liquid in which the rock will float?
20) A slab of ice floats on a freshwater lake. What minimum volume must the slab have for
a 45.0 kg woman to be able to stand on it without getting her feet wet?
21) An ore sample weighs 16.20 N in air. When the sample is suspended by a light cord
and totally immersed in water, the tension in the cord is 12.90 N. Find the total volume
and the density of the sample.
22) You are preparing some apparatus for a visit to a newly discovered planet Caasi having
oceans of glycerine and a surface acceleration due to gravity of 4.15 m/s2. If your
apparatus floats in the oceans on earth with 16.0% of its volume submerged, what
percentage will be submerged in the glycerine oceans of Caasi?
23) A rock with density 1200 kg/m3 is suspended from the lower end of a light string. When
the rock is in air, the tension in the string is 28.0 N. What is the tension in the string
when the rock is totally immersed in a liquid with density 750 kg/m3?
24) A hollow plastic sphere is held below the surface of a freshwater lake by a cord
anchored to the bottom of the lake. The sphere has a volume of 0.680 m3 and the tension
in the cord is 950 N. (a) Calculate the buoyant force exerted by the water on the sphere.
(b) What is the mass of the sphere? (c) The cord breaks and the sphere rises to the
surface. When the sphere comes to rest, what fraction of its volume will be submerged?
25) A cubical block of wood, 10.0 cm on a side, floats at the interface between oil and water
with its lower surface 1.50 cm below the interface Figure below. The density of the oil
is 790 kg/m3. (a) What is the gauge pressure at the upper face of the block? (b) What is
the gauge pressure at the lower face of the block? (c) What are the mass and density of
the block?
26) A solid aluminum ingot weighs 94 N in air. (a) What is its volume? (b) The ingot is
suspended from a rope and totally immersed in water. What is the tension in the rope
(the apparent weight of the ingot in water)?
27) A rock is suspended by a light string. When the rock is in air, the tension in the string
is 39.2 N. When the rock is totally immersed in water, the tension is 28.4 N. When the
rock is totally immersed in an unknown liquid, the tension is 21.5 N. What is the density
of the unknown liquid?
28) A uniform plastic block floats in water with 30.0% of its volume above the surface of
the water. The block is placed in a second liquid and floats with 20.0% of its volume
above the surface of the liquid. What is the density of the second liquid?
29) A large plastic cylinder with mass 30.0 kg and density 370 kg/m3 is in the water of a
lake. A light vertical cable runs between the bottom of the cylinder and the bottom of
the lake and holds the cylinder so that 30.0% of its volume is above the surface of the
water. What is the tension in the cable?

30) A U-shaped tube open to the air at both ends contains some mercury. A quantity of
water is carefully poured into the left arm of the U-shaped tube until the vertical height
of the water column is 15.0 cm Figure below. (a) What is the gauge pressure at the
water–mercury interface? (b) Calculate the vertical distance h from the top of the
mercury in the right-hand arm of the tube to the top of the water in the left-hand arm.