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I'm sure this is a stupid question but why was it stable/impervious to waves when flipped?
by Mistletoe 3y ago
I'm sure this is a stupid question but why was it stable/impervious to waves when flipped?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- mkl 3y agoFrom Wikipedia [1]: "When flipped, most of the ballast for the platform is provided by water at depths below the influence of surface waves, hence FLIP is stable and mostly immune to wave action similar to a spar buoy." Its mass wasn't sitting on the moving surface, but largely surrounded by water that wasn't moving much. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RP_FLIP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RP_FLIP
- thom 3y agoHadn’t really thought about this before, but I suppose this is a fairly obvious result of Archimedes’ principle.
- Mistletoe 3y agoNeat thank you. That makes sense.
- puzzlingcaptcha 3y agoA more modern approach using that principle would be SWATH vessels (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small-waterplane-area_twin_hull https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small-waterplane-area_twin_hul...)
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- robryk 3y agoI think that the reason is that waves only move water close to the surface, and FLIP's drag is centered way below it. It's clear to me how this should reduce rolling and lolling, but am less certain how it should affect bobbing.
- jabl 3y agoYou can see on the pictures that the ship is very narrow in the middle (that becomes the stairwell/elevator shaft for going down into the undersea researchy areas), so when it stands on end, the waves cause relatively small changes in the buoyancy. The big forepeak that provides reserve buoyancy so the thing doesn't sink outright if a big wave hits it, sits well above the water surface.