How do big ass ships like aircraft carriers actually float on water while carrying the weight of aircraft, engines, controls, etc?
In: Engineering
Buoyancy.
This is the principle regarding whether things will float or sink. This compares the weight of the object you place in the water with the weight of the water that would take up the same space.
So if you put a 1cm cube of steel into water, 1cm³ of steel weights more than 1cm³ of water, and the steel sinks.
If you put a 1cm³ cube of polystyrene in the water however, the polystyrene will weigh less than 1cm³ of water, so the polystyrene isn’t heavy enough to push the water out of the way and it floats.
Ships like aircraft carriers are hugely heavy things, but they are also absolutely vast, but most importantly, they are also full of a lot of air and space – just think of all the space in corridors and rooms that is just air. So if you add up all of the weight of the steel and other heavy bits, that weight will be less than the weight of all the water it would take to fill up all the corridors and rooms inside.
So it seems mad when you consider that the big US carriers are approaching 100,000 tonnes, but they are so big that the water that would occupy the same space weighs even more than that.
Latest Answers