The load is balanced by a pressure. If the load is off-center the pressure must be non-uniform. Assuming a linear distribution, it would be a triangle.
So where is the center of mass of a triangle? Equivalently, where is the line of action for a triangular pressure distribution?
Let triangle be of width
W and height
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. Then

for the area, which is also equal in magnitude to the applied
load,
P. The first moment is calculated as

where
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. So we have

where
A = P, the applied load.
So it's at 2/3 of the width,
W.
--
MarkCutkosky - 11 Jan 2005
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