WHY A SHIP FLOATS
It is because the pressure of water at a given depth is exerted upward, as well as laterally and downward, that a ship floats. It is the upward pressure of the water that holds up the boat. When an object is placed in a reservoir of water it sinks into zones of increasing pressure until it finally reaches a depth at which the pressure on the bottom of the object balances the weight of the body. If the body is entirely submerged before reaching such a point, it will continue to sink to the bottom of the reservoir because water will flow over the top of the object and keep adding downward pressure to offset the increasing upward pressure. The amount of water in the reservoir makes no difference. A battleship will float just as high in a flooded dry dock as it will in the open ocean. If the dry dock were so narrow as to leave a clearance of but a few inches of water around the ship, the latter would still float even though the ship weighed considerably more than the water in the dock.
There is a big difference, then, between the weight of water and the pressure it exerts. In Figure 38 we have an L-shaped receptacle with the lower arm of the L terminating in a chamber A. The top wall B of this chamber measures ten square inches. The tube C has a cross sectional area of one square inch. If tube C is filled to a height of twelve inches above wall B we shall have an upward pressure of 0.434 pound on every square inch of wall B, or a total of 4.34 pounds. If by means of a plunger D we add a hundred pounds of pressure to the column of water in tube C, we shall be adding a thousand pounds to the pressure on the wall B. The side walls and bottom of the chamber A will also be subjected to a pressure of 1,000 pounds per inch plus the pressure due to the depth or head of water.
FIG. 38.—DIAGRAM ILLUSTRATING HYDROSTATIC PRESSURE
THE AIR-LOCK OF A PNEUMATIC CAISSON
SUBAQUEOUS TUNNEL, SHOWING THE SHIELD IN THE BACKGROUND
FIG. 39.—PRINCIPLE OF THE HYDRAULIC PRESS
Here, then, we have a convenient means of multiplying force or effort and it is a means that is used very largely in certain classes of machinery. Figure 39 is a diagrammatic representation of a hydraulic press. It consists of a cylinder A in which is fitted a ram B. An L-shaped tube C connects with the cylinder and is fitted with a plunger D. The cylinder and tube are filled with water and then when the plunger is depressed the ram B has to rise, If the area of the plunger is one square inch and that of the ram thirty square inches, a 100 pounds pressure on the plunger will exert 3,000 pounds of lift on the ram.