How to Raise a Sunken Battleship Using Buoyancy

What is the method proposed to raise the sunken battleship weighing 40000 tons?

(a) We now propose to raise the battleship by sinking steel tanks adjacent to it, attaching them to the battleship, and then blowing the water out of them with compressed air making them buoyant. Assuming that the compressed-air tanks will have negligible mass, what volume must they have to raise the battleship?

The volume of steel tanks needed to raise the battleship

To raise the sunken battleship weighing 40000 tons, steel tanks with a combined volume of approximately 5061 cubic meters must be sunk and then filled with compressed air.

Raising a sunken battleship requires understanding buoyancy and the principles of fluid displacement. In this scenario, the battleship weighs 40000 tons and is submerged in seawater. To lift it, we will use steel tanks that will be attached to the battleship and filled with compressed air.

Archimedes' principle states that the buoyant force acting on an object submerged in a fluid is equal to the weight of the fluid displaced by the object. When we want to raise the battleship, we need to create enough buoyant force to counteract its weight.

The battleship's weight is 40000 tons, which can be converted to kilograms (1 ton = 1000 kg). The battleship's mass (m) is then 40000 * 1000 kg.

The buoyant force (F_b) needed to lift the battleship is equal to its weight (mg), where g is the acceleration due to gravity.

F_b = m * g

To create this buoyant force, we need to displace an equivalent weight of water. The volume of water displaced (V) can be calculated using the formula:

V = F_b / ρ_w

where ρ_w is the density of seawater, which is approximately 1025 kg/m³.

Once we know the required volume of water displaced, we can use the same volume for the steel tanks. The combined volume of the steel tanks should be approximately 5061 cubic meters to provide the necessary buoyant force to lift the battleship.

In conclusion, by utilizing the principles of buoyancy and fluid dynamics, we determined that steel tanks with a total volume of around 5061 cubic meters must be attached to the battleship and filled with compressed air to raise the sunken battleship weighing 40000 tons.