{"id":20030,"date":"2024-08-29T21:44:08","date_gmt":"2024-08-29T18:44:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/?p=20030"},"modified":"2024-08-29T21:44:08","modified_gmt":"2024-08-29T18:44:08","slug":"how-does-the-worlds-largest-cruise-ship-not-sink","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/?p=20030","title":{"rendered":"How does the World&#8217;s Largest Cruise ship not sink?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ever since Royal Caribbean International&#8217;s behemoth entered service, people have been awestruck by the ship&#8217;s sheer size and height, and naturally wondered how it floats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Measuring 364 meters (1,196 ft) by 48 meters (159 ft), Icon of the seas is the largest cruise ship in the world and features seven (yes, seven) swimming pools, as well as an ice rink, wave simulator and over 40 restaurants, bars and living rooms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Now of course, the first thing you&#8217;d think when seeing a photo of the Icon sailing the seven seas is less likely to be awe and more &#8220;how does it stay afloat?&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>How does it float?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A video of the ship&#8217;s arrival in all its gigantic glory at the port of Miami had viewers asking the same question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Royal Caribbean ICON of the SEAS First Arrival Port MIAMI - Jan 10th, 2024\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/0oKeqakfff4?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;Someone tell me how this thing manages to float,&#8221; one person wrote, while another added: &#8220;How the hell does this thing float?&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Curious how Icon of the Seas doesn&#8217;t sink or capsize in stormy waves or strong winds? Don&#8217;t worry, we have the answer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">An engineering student realized it was his time to shine and shared a relatively simple explanation of Archimedes&#8217; law of buoyancy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe water pushes the ship up with a force equal to the weight of the water pushing it aside. Because the ship is so large, it pushes aside a lot of water, creating a strong upward force,&#8221; they wrote, and continued, &#8220;The ship only needs to sink a little into the water to float. You can see the waterline \u2013 everything below it is pushing the water out of the way, creating the upward force that keeps it afloat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWhile parts of the ship (such as the hull) are very dense, the overall density of the entire ship is less than water due to its design. It is this lower average density that allows such a gigantic structure to float effortlessly on water.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">An article from Cruise Nation states that a large ship is able to stay afloat &#8220;as long as it can displace an amount of water equal to its mass.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Still confused?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>A simple explanation of Archimedes&#8217; law of buoyancy<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">To understand why a ship floats we must first say two things about Archimedes&#8217; principle, which states that &#8220;any body immersed in a fluid experiences a buoyancy equal to the weight of the fluid it displaces&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Mathematically, Buoyancy (A) can be expressed by the formula:<br><strong>A = \u03c1 g V,<\/strong><br>where:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>\u03c1:<\/strong> fluid density<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>g:<\/strong> acceleration of gravity (9.81m\/s^2)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>V<\/strong>: volume of submerged body<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The conclusion is that when the weight of a body is greater than the buoyancy it receives then it will sink, while otherwise it will float.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Let&#8217;s look at the importance of density in a little more detail<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Most of us know that if we throw a piece of wood into the sea it floats, while if we throw a metal object it will fatally sink. This is due to the density of the two objects. Wood has a lower density than water, but metal has a higher density.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">According to all the above, in order for a ship to float we understand that its density should be less than water. When the ship floats on water we say it has positive buoyancy, when it sinks it has negative buoyancy and when it floats below the surface of the water it has neutral buoyancy. Submarines have neutral buoyancy when diving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>The vast majority of ships in the world are made of metal so why don&#8217;t they sink?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">They do not sink because a ship is not solid metal. A ship has various spaces in which there is air. The importance of air in this case is great because it reduces the density of the ship. To understand it better we should say that the average density of the ship is equal to its total mass divided by its total volume. In other words, as we increase the volume, the density decreases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The question asked by many is whether the air should be trapped somewhere, e.g. in a hold. The answer is no. Even if the empty hold or anything else is open, the ship will float.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So for the ship to float on the surface of the water, it should, if possible, displace a weight of liquid equal to its weight, that is, when the density of the ship will be less than that of the water.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ever since Royal Caribbean International&#8217;s behemoth entered service, people have been awestruck by the ship&#8217;s sheer size and height, and naturally wondered how it&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1168,2960],"tags":[5827,2017,5828,5826],"class_list":["post-20030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science-technology","category-technology","tag-archimedes","tag-cruise-ships","tag-icon-of-the-seas","tag-law-of-buoyancy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20030"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20030\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20032,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20030\/revisions\/20032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}