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Free Surface Effect,
ship stability, naval architecture, titanic, tankers, ballast, gravity,
buoyancy, flooding in Marine Engineer Shipping
Tankers have low freeboard
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Free Surface Effect
Have you ever seen a sinking ship? I am sure you have.
Nowadays, movies and TV news footage are able to show scenes of ships that
have taken in a lot of water. The movie, Titanic, has lots of scenes of a
sinking ship. If you have not watched the movie, you might have missed
some interesting points.
However, this page is not about sinking ships. In this page, we want to
talk about a phenomenon called "Free Surface Effect". It has a lot to do
with the stability of a ship. A ship that has taken in a lot of water will
also experience this kind of phenomenon that will make it unstable. Part
of the study of naval architecture deals with ship stability.
Ships carrying liquid cargo, or Tankers, have to be designed so as to
minimize the effects of free liquid surface. Water ballast, fuel oil,
fresh water, lubrication oil, and other liquid carried in the ship can
also contribute to the free surface effect.
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The drawing shows a cross section through the midship of a tanker ship. If
there is some dynamic force that makes a ship tilt to one side, notice how
the oil in the tank finds its own level and tends to shift more towards
the tilting side.
The center of gravity of the oil in the tank will also shift. If the ship
has enough buoyancy, it is able to right itself.
However, if the tilt is too big, the shift in the center of gravity of the
oil may become too big. Instead of righting the ship, the buoyancy force
on the ship may even turn the ship in the same direction of tilt, and the
ship rotates and overturns.
What can be done to minimize the free surface effect?
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The ship is fitted with compartments so that there are several tanks
instead of one big tank. Even though the same quantity of oil is carried,
notice how the oil behaves. The center of gravity of individual oil tanks
will also shift, but the summation of all the centers of gravities does
not shift the center of gravity of the ship that significantly as before.
Another way to minimize the free surface effect is to fill the tanks
nearly full. In this case there is less room for the liquid to move about
freely. This method may be a bit difficult to control for tanks carrying
consumables like fuel oil, domestic water, and potable water.
The shape of the tanks can also be built to ensure stability, but in most
cases, ships are built for maximum storage capacity and the rectangular
cross sectional shape is most feasible.
The tanks in a Tanker are built in compartments for this purpose. The
sides of the tanks also serve to protect the ship from complete flooding
should some damage to its hull occur.
Download Naval Architecture
Questions & Answers e-book. This e-book contains worked examples in
calculations for the Class 1 Marine Engineer Naval Architecture Paper for
Competency Exams.
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