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A scuba diver is originally neutrally bouyant (she just floats without moving) 20 m below the surface of the ocean. She's enjoying photographing a wreck in nice 20 degrees Celsius water when her air hose catches on a piece of wreckage, puncturing it. 10 L of gas (assume it's all N 2 N_2 with mass 28 g/mol for ease of calculation) escapes from her tank before she can clamp the hole. After the gas has escaped, what is the net force on the diver?

Details and assumptions

  • You may take the density of ocean water to be 1025 k g / m 3 1025~kg/m^3 .
  • Atmospheric pressure is 101325 Pa.
  • R is 8.314 J/(mol K).
  • The acceleration due to gravity is 9.8 m / s 2 -9.8~m/s^2 .


The answer is 0.341.

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2 solutions

Datu Candao
May 20, 2014

Initial condition: Scuba diver is naturally buoyant at constant depth, so initial net force is 0. The upward buoyant force, which only depends on the volume (and thus the weight) of the water displaced by the diver remains the same. Conclusion: The new net force will thus only be the change of the diver's total weight, which is the weight lost from the 10L N 2 N_2 gas. Solution: Using the Ideal Gas Law P V = n R T PV = nRT , and the pressure P = P a t m + ρ w a t e r g d P=P_{atm}+\rho_{water} g d , the mol of N 2 N_2 gas is 1.24 mol. Using the molecular mass 28g/mol, the mass of the N 2 N_2 gas is = 34.72g = 0.03472 kg. Finally, the weight of the N 2 N_2 gas is (0.03472 kg)(9.8 m/s^2) = 0.34N

David Mattingly Staff
May 13, 2014

The diver and gas is originally neutrally bouyant, which means that the total initial net force on the diver is zero. In order to find the net force after the gas is lost, we need to find the mass of the gas. We could use the ideal gas law to find this, but first we need to know the pressure 20 m below the surface of the water. This is p 20 = p s u r f a c e + ρ g d = 302225 p_{20}=p_{surface}+\rho g d=302225 Pa, where d is 20 m. The ideal gas law then yields N = p 20 V / ( R T ) = 1.24 N=p_{20} V/(RT)=1.24 mol of gas (make sure to convert units properly).

The mass of the gas lost is therefore m = ( 0.028 ) ( 1.24 ) = 0.0348 m=(0.028)(1.24)=0.0348 kg. The left over diver/gas system is lighter by ( 0.0348 ) ( 9.8 ) = 0.341 (0.0348)(9.8)=0.341 N but the displaced volume and bouyant force is still the same as before. Therefore the net force upwards is 0.341 N.

sir i have a query will not be bouyant force on hose pipe be considered as it would now be filled with water resulting in O bouyant force which was not so.

aryan goyat - 4 years, 6 months ago

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