[HN Gopher] Naval Architecture
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Naval Architecture
        
       Author : todsacerdoti
       Score  : 653 points
       Date   : 2021-07-27 15:03 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (ciechanow.ski)
 (TXT) w3m dump (ciechanow.ski)
        
       | nraynaud wrote:
       | https://www.youtube.com/c/DatawaveMarineSolutions for people
       | interested, there is a youtube channel on the topic. There is
       | real content, even if it's with marketing intent.
        
       | tfang17 wrote:
       | How many of us read this as Naval (Ravikant) Architecture?
        
       | dirtyid wrote:
       | Very intuitive. I wish there was a list of exemplar
       | visualizations for different subject matters. It's 2021, there's
       | still a lot of bad textbooks out there, emphasis on books.
        
         | garaetjjte wrote:
         | Maybe https://explorabl.es/?
        
       | uberdru wrote:
       | Reminds of something my father, a sailor in the British Merchant
       | Marine, told me. He was recounting a ridiculous North Sea gale,
       | basically hurricane force winds. The ship plunged into the trough
       | and then topped the waves, the screws coming well out of the
       | water every time. "It gave me a new respect for naval
       | architects", he said.
        
       | nwsm wrote:
       | This blog never ceases to amaze me.
        
       | mncharity wrote:
       | I'm reminded of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckaJs_u2U_A , an
       | aluminum foil boat floating on dense SF6 _gas_ , which I think
       | fun.
        
         | supernova87a wrote:
         | That demo is always fun, but I cringe at the use of SF6. That
         | stuff is 23,000x the potency of CO2 in terms of greenhouse gas
         | potency.
        
           | NickNameNick wrote:
           | Is that really a problem? Isn't it so dense it will pretty
           | much stay put?
        
       | _Microft wrote:
       | _Some hull shapes are inherently unstable. The slightest
       | deviation from pristine vertical balance will make the ship flip.
       | However, even hull shapes that are initially stable at some angle
       | reach their limits. All of these examples assume the deck is
       | perfectly sealed and that water doesn't get into the hull._
       | 
       | Loosely related: here is a video of the German Maritime Search
       | and Rescue Service (DGzRS) trying to 'sink' one of their (then
       | new) smaller rescue lifeboats which has self-righting
       | capabilities:
       | 
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dz_N6MG5tt0
       | 
       | (Ofcourse it was a test if it does have these capabilities, not
       | an attempt at actually sinking it.)
        
         | dtgriscom wrote:
         | Interesting. The designers can probably analyze the rate at
         | which the boat righted to quantify its stability.
        
         | lambdasquirrel wrote:
         | One cool thing to think about is the effect of tumblehome hull
         | forms. Kind of makes you check in, that you really know what
         | the center of buoyancy is.
         | 
         | https://www.dco.uscg.mil/Portals/9/DCO%20Documents/5p/CG-5PC...
        
         | jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
         | Yeah, this is a fantastic blog post but is a little inaccurate
         | in some edge cases.
         | 
         | In solo around the world races like Vendee Globe, the boats are
         | required to be fully buoyant and self righting no matter how
         | they end up. The most common approach to achieving this is to
         | rig a canting keel with a device that when the boat capsizes,
         | lets the keel swing to one side, creating a weight imbalance
         | that rights the boat. They're quite serious about it too: you
         | don't get to race the boat unless you demonstrate it works that
         | way at the pier.
        
           | JshWright wrote:
           | It's not inaccurate though... The hull shape does reach a
           | point of instability, at which point the hull shape changes.
        
             | jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
             | There are hull forms (without the canting keels I
             | mentioned) that have positive righting moment through 180
             | degrees. Life rafts are universally designed this way. For
             | boats it's just not that necessary ultimately, as capsize
             | is pretty dang rare on keel boats as a baseline. Vendee
             | Globe et all are hardasses about it because they know if
             | the worst happens, there's no rescue possible on a short
             | timeline.
        
       | ljhsiung wrote:
       | Does anyone know how he creates these animations? I like the
       | representation and would like to create them as well.
        
         | jimhefferon wrote:
         | Expanding on that question, does anyone know of a place where
         | work like this gets discussed? I was unaware of his stuff,
         | which is indeed wonderful, and if there is a way to meet with
         | others who are interested in this kind of thing, and in doing
         | it for ourselves, I'd sure like to be there.
        
           | capableweb wrote:
           | https://news.ycombinator.com is pretty great for that
           | specific area :)
           | 
           | And:
           | 
           | https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Naval%20Architecture&type=stor.
           | ..
           | 
           | https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=ciechanow.ski
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | thamer wrote:
         | It looks like raw HTML5 canvas with some WebGL (2D):
         | https://ciechanow.ski/js/navarch.js with some helper functions
         | in https://ciechanow.ski/js/base.js
        
         | mihaifm wrote:
         | Also interested. Looks like a lot of it is JS code written by
         | hand. This is certainly readable code:
         | https://ciechanow.ski/js/navarch.js
        
           | mLuby wrote:
           | First time I've ever seen JS blocks statements in the wild; I
           | wonder if the author is coming from a language where that's
           | common.
        
             | bruce343434 wrote:
             | >JS blocks statements
             | 
             | What are those?
        
         | fuzzylightbulb wrote:
         | I had the same question. (Putting this here so that I can come
         | back later.)
        
       | blueyes wrote:
       | There is an excellent book by Elting Morison that includes a
       | chapter on naval architecture, and the ways it was held back at
       | the behest of naval commanders who wanted to preserve the culture
       | of sailors that would be destroyed by the introduction of more
       | powerful engines and faster hulls.
       | 
       | https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/men-machines-and-modern-times...
        
       | vishnugupta wrote:
       | Bartosz is back :-)
        
       | WalterBright wrote:
       | > at the scales we're interested in we can assume its value
       | doesn't change.
       | 
       | The reason submarines can be neutrally buoyant at specific depths
       | is because water is compressible, and water's density changes
       | with depth. Adjust the submarine's density to match the water's
       | density at a certain depth, and the sub will be neutrally buoyant
       | at that depth.
        
         | IshKebab wrote:
         | No it isn't. Submarines can be neutrally buoyant at any depth
         | _because_ they have the ability to control their density. The
         | fact that water is slightly compressible has no effect on
         | submarines ' operation.
        
           | WalterBright wrote:
           | Think about what you wrote a bit more :-)
        
             | IshKebab wrote:
             | I did and I have no idea what you're talking about.
             | 
             | Edit: Ah I think you just worded it badly and we're
             | agreeing.
        
         | nradov wrote:
         | Submarines seldom operate at neutral buoyancy. Usually they
         | rely on the planes and propulsion for depth keeping.
        
           | WalterBright wrote:
           | To go silent while being depth-charged, they'll want to sit
           | at neutral buoyancy with the propulsion off. They don't want
           | to sink to crush depth or surface.
        
       | andreofthecape wrote:
       | Very well done!
        
       | el_benhameen wrote:
       | These are so well done. I gave my 4 year old the internal
       | combustion engine page to play around with, thinking that he'd
       | just find the animations fun to play around with. He ended up
       | with a pretty good (4 year old level) understanding of how
       | different parts of an engine work.
        
       | niels_olson wrote:
       | My first job out of college was as a junior engineering officer
       | on a ship. I had taken naval architecture and the daily draft
       | report was part of my job. The fuel king had a spreadsheet where
       | the engineering watch input all the tank levels overnight. I
       | added a sheet that took that data and solved all the tank
       | problems, bouncy, incline, etc, and printed the report. So
       | instead of two hours of number crunching, or one of my enlisted
       | guys doing what he did (which was basically copy forward and
       | subtract an inch a day), the report was completely automated,
       | with fore, aft, and center draft. With zero human effort.
       | 
       | Apparently the guy who took my job when I left had a nervous
       | breakdown. I feel a little bad about that, but not really. He
       | should have paid attention in class.
        
       | WalterBright wrote:
       | The Wright brothers, in trying to figure out how to design an
       | airscrew (propeller), assumed it would work like a ship's screw,
       | and went looking for the theory behind it.
       | 
       | There was no theory, ship's screws were designed by trial and
       | error.
       | 
       | So the Wrights invented the first propeller mathematical theory.
       | It produced propellers that were 90% efficient, about double the
       | efficiency of other experimenters' ad hoc propellers.
       | 
       | Double the efficiency meant the Wrights needed half the
       | horsepower to get into the air.
        
         | Stevvo wrote:
         | Interestingly, whilst computers play an ever more dominant
         | role, there is still a large amount of trial and error that
         | goes into hull design.
         | 
         | All famous hull designers draw their curves by hand.
        
           | pomian wrote:
           | Have you ever tried to model a sailboat hull in AutoCAD,
           | SketchUp? I remember trying out all the"new" cad software in
           | the 80/90's, it was impossible. I still think it extremely
           | difficult. What you can do by hand is easy, conceptually and
           | practically. Software is there now, but still extremely
           | complicated. Not a single bit of straight line, anywhere, in
           | any direction!
        
           | WJW wrote:
           | That is mostly because you only get to be famous as a hull
           | designer if you make "beautiful" hulls (ie for yaghts and
           | stuff), and beauty is very difficult to express
           | mathematically. The people designing containers ships don't
           | draw their lines by hand but rely on large amounts of
           | computing power to compute hull stresses and squeeze every
           | last bit of storage space out of their designs.
           | 
           | As an interesting anecdote, when I was still working for the
           | (Dutch) navy they had a project going on to use constraint
           | solvers to generate new submarine designs. The design team
           | would generate 10 designs every week, take them to the sub
           | guys who would spot new problems ("there is no bathroom close
           | to the command deck" for example) and then go back and
           | translate all the problems into new constraints for the
           | solver. Later iterations even had VR models so they could
           | "walk" through the virtual ship.
        
             | WalterBright wrote:
             | Reminds me of designing a house. Want a bigger bathroom?
             | The closet shrinks.
        
         | Ichthypresbyter wrote:
         | >There was no theory, ship's screws were designed by trial and
         | error.
         | 
         | The early marine propeller designs consisted of an Archimedes-
         | type screw with multiple full turns. During tests of one such
         | design on a small boat in the Paddington Canal in London, half
         | of the propeller broke off. The broken propeller (with only one
         | turn) turned out to be able to propel the boat twice as fast.
         | [0]
         | 
         | The inventor, Francis Smith, amended the patent to describe
         | either a single-turn screw propeller or one with two screw
         | threads each describing half a turn (essentially a two-bladed
         | propeller).
         | 
         | [0]https://www.bluebird-electric.net/boats_images/propellers-
         | fr...
        
         | WalterBright wrote:
         | The propeller efficiency aspect is why I don't believe all the
         | other "first powered flight" claims. The Wright Flyer had
         | barely enough power to get airborne, and that's with the
         | double-efficiency propeller.
         | 
         | Attempts to build flying replicas of the other claimants'
         | machines don't impress me because they don't address the power
         | needed to get those contraptions into the air with the engines
         | available at the time. (The Wrights couldn't find an engine
         | with the power/weight needed, and had to design/build their own
         | powerplant.)
        
       | LargoLasskhyfv wrote:
       | That was interesting, and FUN! 'Explorable Explanations', Yay!
       | 
       | Excellent. Bookmarked.
        
       | robotnikman wrote:
       | Playing the game From the Depths (if you like games like kerbal
       | space program I highly recommend it) taught me a lot about naval
       | architecture and hull design.
       | 
       | I already knew some about it since I already liked playing Naval
       | games, but it took at least 12 hours or learning and
       | experimenting before I could design a hull design which didnt
       | sink or roll over, or other odd behavior. This is all despite the
       | game not modeling some of the other aspects like water pressure,
       | and being simpler compared to real life.
       | 
       | Basically, there is a lot more to designing ships that meets the
       | eye.
        
       | tobmlt wrote:
       | Nice visualizations! Next how about response amplitude operators
       | and statistical response in a random wavy sea? Spectra of Motion,
       | force, etc are really compact tools for design analysis. The
       | linear theory is quite beautiful in my opinion. Not Maxwell's
       | equations beautiful, but up there.
       | 
       | Speaking (indirectly) of the equations of motion, I didn't see
       | added-mass as I scanned through. Could be fun to talk about as
       | well as diffraction radiation.
       | 
       | Somehow the above are more fun sounding to me than Navier Stokes.
       | I dunno. My burnout shifts with time.
        
       | panic wrote:
       | The way the slider matches the position of the block as it floats
       | is very satisfying.
        
       | dtgriscom wrote:
       | My personal money-shot: "the center of buoyancy is just the
       | center of gravity of the displaced water." Very clear, very cool.
        
       | tastyfreeze wrote:
       | Fantastic material! Material like this blows the pants off of a
       | textbook and is an example of what educational material online
       | should be.
        
       | jonshariat wrote:
       | "It's worth stressing that in these static cases the pressure at
       | a given level depends purely on the height of the body of water."
       | 
       | How did I not know this? It's so counter intuitive that a thin
       | column of water can cause the same pressure as a wide one.
       | 
       | The video they link shows this in action:
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJHrr21UvY8
       | 
       | One mind bending fact she shares in the video is that a thin
       | layer of water, touching the damn wall, is the same pressure as
       | an entire lake.
        
         | zwkrt wrote:
         | A fun thought experiment is to realize that if the earths
         | atmosphere were totally removed except for a cylinder that
         | encircled your house and went into space, you would feel
         | physically the same. Just like in the water, in some sense the
         | only thing air pressure cares about is how much air is directly
         | on top of your head.
        
         | abraae wrote:
         | I'm building a system for measuring levels in water tanks using
         | submersible pressure sensors (triggered by living in a dry area
         | and being totally dependant on our tanks).
         | 
         | Quality sensors cost a lot - too much for domestic purposes.
         | Much cheaper ones can be bought from China, so I've been
         | looking for some way to test them, without actually altering
         | the level in a gigantic water tank.
         | 
         | It occurred to me I should be able to just use a thin vertical
         | pipe. But as you say, this seems counter intuitive, especially
         | if the pipe is barely wider than the sensor itself. Just
         | doesn't... Feel right.
        
           | zsmi wrote:
           | I can totally relate.
           | 
           | I've been using ohm/square for decades. I know the math. I've
           | measured it. It works. I know it's true. But my mind refuses
           | to accept that ohms/square can possibly be a unit. Every
           | single time my mind is like, "ohms per square what?"
           | 
           | http://www.esdjournal.com/techpapr/ohmmtr/ohm.htm
        
             | tbrownaw wrote:
             | My understanding of that is that it's using "square" as in
             | aspect ratio like how screens are 16:9 or whatever, while
             | "square" in units is more commonly used as in `exp(n, 2)`.
             | And that terminology mismatch is why it often doesn't seem
             | to make sense.
        
           | RantyDave wrote:
           | If you stick the sensor at one end of a hose pipe (with water
           | in it) then you can just change the height of the other end
           | to change the pressure.
        
             | abraae wrote:
             | Nice idea, thank you.
        
           | RantyDave wrote:
           | Hey, also, why not just find the height of the water level by
           | attaching something ultrasonic to the inspection hatch (or
           | whatever). https://www.adafruit.com/product/4664
        
             | abraae wrote:
             | Not accurate enough. I want to be able to quantify e.g how
             | much water was used to water the garden. In a 25K litre
             | tank, that's a very small change in level.
        
               | groby_b wrote:
               | You'll have the same issue with pressure sensors, though?
               | 
               | Maybe a flow meter is a better choice for that. (Bonus,
               | you can use that to cross-calibrate with the
               | pressure/level sensor)
        
               | snovv_crash wrote:
               | Yep, if you use flow plus pressure, you can run an EKF to
               | get much more accurate results.
        
             | vosper wrote:
             | Not only is this a really cool idea, that sensor is
             | awesome! I love that you can get something like that for
             | $30.
        
           | lazide wrote:
           | It's called head - and it's a key calculation in if a dam is
           | worthwhile. The pipe feeding the turbine can be quite small
           | for a lot of power if the head is large.
           | 
           | You could also use a small pressure vessel/sealed tank, and
           | pump in water with a hand pump. You could simulate nearly any
           | sized tank that way too.
        
         | morpheos137 wrote:
         | why is it counter intuitive for you? It is not to me at all.
         | Gravity pulls down. There is essentially no lateral component
         | to gravity. Height is measured in the verticle dimension, the
         | same as gravity. Now imagine water column as a stack of
         | pennies. The more pennies are added to the stack the more
         | pressure is on the lower pennies. It does not matter how many
         | stacks are in front of or behind or to side of the stack you
         | are looking at.
        
           | Iv wrote:
           | > There is essentially no lateral component to gravity
           | 
           | Yet you can distribute the weight of a structure on larger
           | bases. If you put two columns on pennies on a steel plate,
           | the pressure under the plate will be higher than if you put
           | only one column.
           | 
           | It is easy to imagine the bottom vessel as similar to such a
           | plate.
           | 
           | I think the key to make this intuitive is to realize a few
           | things:
           | 
           | - pressure in liquids are transmitted differently - water is
           | actually very slightly compressible - atmospheric pressure is
           | also an important part of the system
        
             | abdullahkhalids wrote:
             | > Yet you can distribute the weight of a structure on
             | larger bases.
             | 
             | In the case of solid objects, indeed. This is because in
             | solids atoms are bonded together and so the weight can
             | distribute. An easy and extreme case of this last statement
             | is to imagine standing on a bridge. Your weight is
             | supported not just by the part of the bridge underneath
             | you, but, via transmission, by the two end points attached
             | to land.
             | 
             | In liquids, the atoms are not bonded, so the same
             | distribution cannot happen.
        
             | morpheos137 wrote:
             | pressure is measured in force per surface area. It is
             | disheartening to see HN so quantitatively illiterate.
        
               | simonh wrote:
               | Nobody is saying this fact about liquids isn't true. We
               | all know it's true, so proving it doesn't change
               | anything.
               | 
               | It is counter intuitive though precisely because the
               | pennies analogy doesn't work.
               | 
               | If I put a 1m stack of quarters on a pressure gauge, then
               | I put one quarter on the gauge and a stack of pennies on
               | top of it up to 1m high, I get two different readings.
               | Conversely if I measure the pressure at the bottom of two
               | bottles the same shape as the stacks of coins, I get the
               | same readings.
        
               | morpheos137 wrote:
               | If you measure the pressure at the bottom of two bottles
               | containing different density liquids the same shape as
               | the two stacks of different coins you get two different
               | pressure readings.
               | 
               | In case it was not clear in my analogy a "penny" (it can
               | be anything solid and incompressible) is representative
               | of a water molecule. If you want to compare the pressures
               | of stacks of pennies and quarters because for some reason
               | you are fixated in these specific physical coins rather
               | than what they represent then I will make it explicit.
               | Imagine pennies represent water and quarters represent
               | mercury. Two different liquids, two different coins, two
               | different pressures. I don't get what you guys don't get.
               | 
               | Can you explain to me why you think it is intuitive that
               | the downward pressure of a liquid at the bottom of a
               | container should vary for equal depths but different
               | volumes? E.g. you seem to intuitively think that if you
               | have a big pan filled with 1 inch of water the water
               | pressure at the bottom of the pan is greater than the
               | pressure at the bottom of a 50 ml flask also filled with
               | one inch of water. This is false but I am interested as
               | to why you and the others think it is "intuitive?" Where
               | does the additional force come from to increase the
               | pressure in the bigger pan? Gravity pulls straight down.
        
               | Iv wrote:
               | In my case, the difference in intuitiveness is that I am
               | used to things crushing because of weight/force but not
               | because of pressure.
               | 
               | If you have a bottle of 1 kg of water and put it on a
               | plank between two stools, what matters to know if the
               | plank will break is the total weight (and torque) of the
               | bottle and the surface of contact. The shape of the
               | bottle is irrelevant.
               | 
               | When you have that image in mind and someone suddenly
               | tells you that actually no, 1 kg of water on a 50 meters
               | high column can actually break things 1kg of water in a
               | bucket can't, it is very counterintuitive.
               | 
               | And the stack of pennies is really unhelpful I feel. Make
               | an inverse pyramid with 1000 pennies, all of them resting
               | on one at the bottom tip, or make a column of these, the
               | force exerted on the bottom one will be the same. The
               | force per area as well. Not so with water.
               | 
               | The difference is that the water molecules move until
               | they find an equilibrium in which there is a gradient of
               | pressure and where molecules push back in every direction
               | equally. Pennies do not, they are content exerting
               | "pressure" in a single direction
        
               | morpheos137 wrote:
               | Water exerts pressure in a single direction too: down.
               | There is no PSI gradient in the lateral direction. This
               | is intuitive because there is no force acting in that
               | direction. I do not believe water molecules ever find a
               | topological equilibrium in a liquid phase. Because then
               | they would be a solid or a crystal. Water as a liquid can
               | flow but it still only exerts pressure in the downward
               | direction. To my analogy, pennies can slide or move from
               | one stack to another (e.g. waves). The only thing
               | affecting the pressure on the bottom penny of a given
               | stack at a given instant is the number of pennies in that
               | same stack resting on top of it. What is going on in the
               | adjacent stacks does not matter, because gravity only
               | pulls down.
        
             | bilog wrote:
             | The intuition with the columns of pennies over a plate
             | doesn't translate because in the plate case the surface is
             | fixed (the surface of the plate) so the pressure depends on
             | how much weight you put on it. In the case of multiple
             | columns of water, the pressure you're looking at is the
             | pressure on the combined surface of both columns, which
             | remains constant because both the weight AND the surface
             | are increasing proportionally, keeping the ratio (that
             | gives you the pressure) constant.
        
           | jvanderbot wrote:
           | This is a great explanation, actually.
        
             | JKCalhoun wrote:
             | Hmmm ... reinforces my counter-intuition. The stack of
             | pennies might explain why the bottom of the jar would
             | explode, but not the sides, area not below the stack of
             | pennies.
             | 
             | My intuition (wrong here) is that the extra surface _not_
             | beneath the stack of pennies (your analogy) would in fact
             | _distribute_ the pressure and therefore represent a lower
             | PSI on all sides of the jar.
        
               | jvanderbot wrote:
               | I guess I translated "pennies" into "little bags of
               | water". The little bag of water at the bottom only gets
               | pressurized from the little bags of water above it.
               | 
               | And so the bottom bag's "pushing" outward from
               | compression would be affected only by those above it.
        
           | RealityVoid wrote:
           | Actually, yours is not such a great explanation, since a
           | stack of quarters would manifest greater pressure than a
           | stack of pennies. Whereas, a fluid column would manifest the
           | same pressure no matter the diameter.
        
             | Ma8ee wrote:
             | No, a stack of pennies would manifest a greater force, but
             | the pressure would be the same. Pressure is force per area,
             | which means that the increased weight from a wider column
             | is exactly cancelled by the increased area that the force
             | is distributed over.
        
               | Denvercoder9 wrote:
               | Technically a stack of quarters would exert a greater
               | pressure, but only because they're made of a denser
               | material than pennies.
        
               | RealityVoid wrote:
               | Ok, yes, this holds true if the support surface increases
               | the same. But the parallels still do not hold too well.
               | Imagine sort of a funnel holding water, no matter the
               | thickness of the base or top, the fluid pressure at the
               | base is the same. Whereas with coins it does not work the
               | same.
        
             | morpheos137 wrote:
             | penny is symbolic. diameter is irrelavent if scale is
             | undefined.
        
           | Nathanael_M wrote:
           | Super conter-intuitive for me as well. I appreciate your
           | explanation!
        
         | zarzavat wrote:
         | Perhaps you are conflating pressure and force?
         | 
         | Pressure is force per area, the area doesn't matter by
         | definition. Similarly to how we measure rainfall in
         | millimetres: volume / area = length.
         | 
         | Whereas if you were to place a bucket of water on your head,
         | the area of the bucket would surely make a big difference to
         | the force you feel, all else being equal.
        
         | pkaye wrote:
         | Its basically the Bernoulli's equation. Its because pressure is
         | force over area and the mass of the body of water above it is
         | area times height time density so the area cancels out. You can
         | add velocity into the equation and its a conservation of energy
         | equation. Similarly there is a continuity equation which is a
         | conservation of mass. These two are the backbone of a beginning
         | fluid mechanics course in engineering.
        
           | jvanderbot wrote:
           | Intuition fails! Quick, point out the math! Your comment is
           | exactly what is derived / demonstrated in the article.
           | 
           | Parent was simply commenting how that math was not intuitive
           | (and so repeating that it was just math doesn't do much).
        
             | [deleted]
        
         | tobmlt wrote:
         | Fluid has so much to bend the mind. Soliton waves, shocks,
         | expansions, critical transition phenomena (besides phase
         | transition) Look at froude number and planning hulls, the
         | purpose of chines, steps, etc. in a high speed hull to manage
         | skin friction vs wave drag. Wave Dispersion, wave
         | superposition, etc. the free surface itself means if you are
         | solving for flow, flow then determines the free surface which
         | then determines the flow.. add infinitum. It's nonlinear like a
         | baby general relativity in that way. The shallow water
         | equations are hyperbolic so you get shocks etc. deep water,
         | long wavelength waves act in linear fashion so you get
         | superposition effects. On and on. Fun times.
        
           | awestroke wrote:
           | Can you recommend any books on this?
        
             | mr_overalls wrote:
             | Fluid mechanics is a standard course in many undergraduate
             | engineering curriculum. A quick Google search reveals lots
             | of open-source and downloadable pdfs of printed texts.
             | 
             | https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/textbooks/85
             | 
             | http://civilcafe.weebly.com/uploads/2/8/9/8/28985467/fluid_
             | m...
        
           | throwawaysea wrote:
           | There must be a few general equations that capture all these
           | behaviors in fluids right? That is, aren't all these just
           | "emergent" aspects of some fundamental physics?
        
             | bilog wrote:
             | The equations are conceptually simple: Navier-Stokes
             | equations (conservation of momentum) and conservation of
             | mass. The behavior is emergent.
        
           | tragomaskhalos wrote:
           | Fluid dynamics was an entire optional module in my maths
           | degree, there is so much complex content there. (I didn't
           | take it, it looked too hard!)
        
         | vishnugupta wrote:
         | For me the aha/eureka moment about the force of water pressure
         | was when I read that water jet is used sometimes to precision
         | cut diamonds.
        
         | palijer wrote:
         | This is one of those physics phenomenon where I feel like they
         | are a software bug. Bell's Theorem and a lot of quantum
         | entanglement stuff is like that as well.
         | 
         | https://youtu.be/zcqZHYo7ONs
        
           | jschwartzi wrote:
           | It's actually quite intuitive, as the force is distributed
           | over a larger area. So although the pressure gradient isn't
           | affected by the discontinuity in the container size, if you
           | compare forces exerted by the pressure on a plate in either
           | section of the chamber you'll observe that the force on the
           | wider plate would be reduced to compensate for the increased
           | area in the presence of the same pressure.
        
             | garmaine wrote:
             | I'm not sure why you're being down-voted. If you double the
             | size of a water column, you of course double the total
             | weight pressing down. But you've also doubled the cross-
             | sectional area, so the weight-per-unit-area (pressure)
             | remains the same. This is pretty intuitive if you
             | understand what pressure is.
        
             | Ma8ee wrote:
             | The force would scale with the area, since pressure is
             | force per area. Not the other way around.
        
         | ummonk wrote:
         | That's interesting because it seems perfectly intuitive to me.
         | 
         | Both in terms of understanding the physics (weight of water
         | above the column divided by the area of that column, and then
         | any water around the column just has to have the same pressure
         | to contain that column) and just plain practical experience
         | from e.g. dipping underwater in the ocean and not getting
         | crushed like a bug.
        
           | Iv wrote:
           | It is very counterintuitive when you reason in terms of
           | weight though. If you imagine a pile of rocks for instance,
           | it makes sense that the strain on the base of a pyramid is
           | lower than on the base of a column of the same height and
           | base area.
           | 
           | You have to visualize the atmospheric air pressure to
           | reconcile the result with intuition.
        
             | ummonk wrote:
             | I mean it's perfectly intuitive to me that a pyramid of
             | rocks isn't going to collapse, so you don't need a
             | container to hold it in. The closer analogue would be
             | pouring sand in to a tube vs. pouring it in to a bottle
             | that widens below the neck - it's intuitive to me that the
             | bottle would be under enormous strain to hold the sand in.
             | (And, incidentally, the part of the bottle where it widens
             | would be applying extra "weight" to the sand below it)
        
         | marcosdumay wrote:
         | On those oddly shaped reservoirs, the walls compensate for the
         | lack of a water column above the places where it widens. The
         | actual force on the water is the same as would be in a
         | cylinder.
        
       | josh_today wrote:
       | Thought this was a new form of philosophy by @naval
        
       | jefurii wrote:
       | These are some very nice visualizations!
        
       | masswerk wrote:
       | I've always thought that metacentric height would make the
       | perfect try-at-home in your bath tube experiment against Flat
       | Earth. If the center of buoyancy and the center of gravity were
       | indeed the same, every ship would be rolling like a log and there
       | weren't any differences in types of ships and hull shapes at all.
       | 
       | However, I guess, those adhering to said fancy model must not be
       | bothered by such complexity of thought...
        
       | gk1 wrote:
       | Naval architecture is a fascinating and beautiful discipline.
       | This post does it justice.
       | 
       | It's too bad there aren't many naval architecture careers in the
       | US. We hardly design or build any ships here anymore. The one
       | exception is military ships. So if you have a naval architecture
       | degree your main employer options are a) government or b)
       | government contractor.
       | 
       | Source: Naval architecture degree.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | ghoward wrote:
         | Hey, you might be able to answer this: if someone who wants to
         | learn naval architecture deeply (but not for a career), how
         | should they go about it?
         | 
         | I'd love to design ships as a career, but as you said, there
         | isn't much work, but why not learn for the sake of learning?
         | 
         | Also, aeronautical engineers, I'd love to learn that too. How
         | to go about it?
        
           | 5555624 wrote:
           | It depends on what you mean by "deeply" and how you wish to
           | go about it.
           | 
           | If you want to try and pick it up on your own, start with the
           | book "Introduction to Naval Architecture" by Thomas Gillmer
           | and Bruce Johnson, from the US Naval Institute. From there,
           | if you're still interested, probably "Applied Naval
           | Architecture" by Robert Zubaly or something from SNAME
           | (Society for Naval Architects and Marine Engineers).
           | 
           | If you want to go to school and you don't want to get a
           | degree in it, you can study something similar; but, related.
           | (I majored in Ocean Engineering, which included a number of
           | naval architecture courses.)
        
             | ghoward wrote:
             | Thank you. :) I am putting those books on my shopping list.
        
           | lazide wrote:
           | If you can afford it, go ahead! At least aeronautical
           | engineering is a solid (and not easy) full time degree
           | program. Embry-Riddle is one well known school, and they may
           | be doing online classes/have some coverage.
        
             | ghoward wrote:
             | Thank you. Online might be doable.
        
           | mLuby wrote:
           | If you're on Twitter, two accounts you might appreciate in
           | one tweet:
           | https://twitter.com/R_P_one/status/1413506570575515655
        
           | pomian wrote:
           | There is a cool program at Memorial University, Newfoundland.
           | https://www.mun.ca/undergrad/programs/engineering/ocean--
           | nav...
        
       | tofuahdude wrote:
       | I'm so traumatized by silicon valley that I immediately assumed
       | this was about Naval Ravikant. Sigh.
        
       | sandworm101 wrote:
       | >> It turns out it's a proper scientific discipline dedicated to
       | the engineering of ships.
       | 
       | No. It is about the engineering of all sorts of things. Ships are
       | a subset. I'd say that it covers all things that float, but that
       | wouldn't include docks, cranes and other things that integrate
       | with ships.
       | 
       | >>As containers are added the ship will sink a little and
       | increase its draft - the distance between the bottom of the hull
       | and the waterline.
       | 
       | This is the wikipedia answer. In the real world "draft" is the
       | lowest part of the ship, which might be something other than the
       | hull. Sailboats especially measure draft from the bottom of their
       | keel, a thing lower than the hull. The "hull" is the watertight
       | body and doesn't include things like keels and rudders which,
       | while uncommon on large vessels, normally extend well below the
       | hull's depth.
        
         | opium_tea wrote:
         | It's amazing what different people take from articles. That
         | someone would read through this page and instead of
         | appreciating the effort and craft their response would be an
         | absolute textbook example of tedious internet pedantry.
        
           | sandworm101 wrote:
           | Or someone who has to spend too much time around navy people
           | who obsess about these definitions, people for whom small
           | errors can lead to poorly loaded holds or vessels hitting
           | rocks because they didn't know their draft from their hull
           | depth.
        
             | NotEvil wrote:
             | But thise people won't come here to find answers to there
             | questions. Whould they? They will learn it in there
             | professional or academic life.
        
               | VLM wrote:
               | I live in a recreation state, and to provide some numbers
               | there are well over three times as many registered boats
               | in my home state than there are naval O-6 rank ship
               | captains. Just in one state.
               | 
               | Admittedly "beaching" a nuclear air craft carrier is more
               | important to the USA than a local bubba beaching his fish
               | trawler on a sandbar; but to bubba as an individual, its
               | more important not to beach his fishing boat as avoidance
               | of beaching his fishing boat is actionable for bubba,
               | whereas watching TV reports of a naval accident are not.
        
       | pomian wrote:
       | Bravo. As usual, Ciechanowski makes extremely easy to understand,
       | graphical expressions of complex ideas. Highly recommend this
       | site and his other topics.
        
       | cjdell wrote:
       | This page is so well done. All physical and mechanical problems
       | should be taught this way. I just loved playing with the sliders.
       | I felt like I didn't even need to read the text to understand the
       | concepts. This could be a great alternative teaching style for
       | bored kids.
        
         | defaultname wrote:
         | This is the person who did the astonishing internal combustion
         | engine and camera entries with the same dedication to detail.
         | 
         | https://ciechanow.ski/internal-combustion-engine/
         | 
         | https://ciechanow.ski/cameras-and-lenses/
         | 
         | They do fantastic work.
        
           | quenix wrote:
           | I am just fascinated by the amount of work and effort that
           | goes into this. A simple view-source shows tens of
           | _thousands_ of lines of code... for a free blog. Incredible
        
       | content_sesh wrote:
       | Really nice explanations and visualizations. The discussion about
       | ship stability and the moment arm between center of gravity and
       | center of buoyancy gave me flashbacks of my undergrad aircraft
       | stability and control classes (where the moment arms between CG
       | and center of lift on the wings determines static stability).
       | 
       | The discussion about propeller design is also very similar to
       | aircraft as well - not just aircraft propellers but also
       | compressors in turbofan engines.
       | 
       | The fact that there's a ton of similarity between the disciplines
       | isn't too surprising, but the great visuals in this blog post
       | made that connection seem particularly satisfying.
        
       | djrogers wrote:
       | Wow - this is amazing work. Great explanations, wonderfully
       | useful animations, and plenty of detail to keep even the most
       | curious interested.
       | 
       | Well done!
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2021-07-28 19:02 UTC)