A short note on the buoyant force in nonuniform gravitational fields

Abstract

Lima and Monteiro [¹] derived the buoyant force in a nonuniform gravitational field by applying a gradient version of the divergence theorem to the surface integral of the pressure forces [²]. Here it is outlined an alternate approach in the framework of fluid mechanics, based on the energy formulations of the equations of state for compressible fluids.

Keywords:
buoyancy; Archimedes’ principle; nonuniform fields; potential energy minimization