How to boats float if they are made of iron?
Answers:
if you put loads of hoses under the sea and pump loads of air into the water it makes it thinner and so boats cant float
It's by a process called DISPLACEMENT. Basically you take the weight of the boat- let's say ours is ten tons- then you put it in the water. Obviously the boat is pushing aside a load of water to make room for itself in the ocean. Our boat will only float if that water it has pushed aside weighs hte same (or more than) our boat- and that's how they float!
Displacement of water. If a hull made of steel displaces water less than its own weight it will float. If it displaces more water that its own weight it will sink.
Something will float in another substance if it weighs less than the volume of the substance it is displacing. A helium filled balloon will float in air because the helium + the balloon weighs less than a balloon-sized volume of air.
A chunk of iron will sink, of course, because it weighs far more than the water it displaces. But take that same chunk of iron and make it into a boat, and now the iron takes up much more volume of water. If it weighs less than the water, it floats.
buoyancy:
In physics, buoyancy is an upward force on an object immersed in a fluid (i.e., a liquid or a gas), enabling it to float or at least to appear lighter. Buoyancy is important for many vehicles such as boats, ships, balloons, and airships.
The buoyancy provides an upward force on the object. The upward forces (buoyancy) have to balance the downward forces weight. Otherwise, it will accelerate upwards or downwards.
If such an object's compressibility is less than that of the surrounding fluid, it is in stable equilibrium and will, indeed, remain at rest, but if its compressibility is greater, its equilibrium is unstable, and it will rise and expand on the slightest upward perturbation, or fall and compress on the slightest downward perturbation. For an object to float, it must be able to displace enough water equal to its weight.
Because of its shape. The boat actually sinks but not completely. If it is shaped simply flaty it will sink completely.
Oh yeah! Displacement.
The boat must weigh less than the volume of water it displaces.
You can see the effect of this when a boat is empty of cargo and when full. When full of cargo there is less of the boat above the water.
It's the shape not the weight that makes them float - now over to the engineers to explain it properly!
Of course water displacement is the answer, - but anything will float - if you make it displace enough water that the "difference of pressure will cause the boat to rise above the water (air is lighter than water!)
As a matter of fact there were many-many concrete troop ships built during WW2, and the walls of the ships were 6-8 feet thick (sometimes more) down near the bottom! Must not have been very nice to ride in, as concrete "weeps" to a certian extent, and they would have been "dank & dark" below deck! By the way a lot of them were around 200 feet or more in length. Reason for cement ships-- shortage of steel!
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