A job that may be asked of an engineer is to determine whether or not a body, such as a pontoon or a barge, will be stable as a floating body. Determining the metacentre and the metacentric height of the object is the key to answering this type of question.

The aim of this experiment is to measure the Metacentric Height, GM, of each of two floating vessels using the 'field’ technique. Then you will need to compare this with the theoretical value for GM obtained using the formula.

In this experiment we will use special equipment for measuring metacentric height.

The top image shows the tank for the equipment in situ, in the Water Engineering laboratory.

The lower image is a closer view of one of the floatation devices used in this experiment.