Hydrostatics
In the context of naval architecture, "hydrostatics" refers to
the study of the buoyant forces and attendant properties which
are involved in supporting a floating body at rest in calm or
flat water. It also covers the similar phenomenon of liquid in a
container. This is distinguished from "hydrodynamics" which
involves fluid flow and time rates.
Extensions into the territory of hydrodynamics can be made using
principles derived from hydrostatic analysis when forces arising
from fluid flow are known to be relatively minor. Two examples
of this are:
- Quasi-static waves: deforming the waterplane to represent a
wave of length comparable to the length of the ship.
- Calculation of energy required to incline a ship from one angle
to another.
Applying hydrostatic principles to multiple-waterplane systems
allows the liquid in tanks to contribute to the forces involved
in modeling a floating ship. Taking this a step further, the
ground can be modeled as a very dense liquid and hydrostatic
forces can also be generated from it when the ship is aground.
Bending moments can also be derived by integrating the opposed
buoyancy and weight forces over the length of a ship. This is
known as "longitudinal strength" analysis and is usually
associated with hydrostatics.
As the "General HydroStatics" computing system, GHS does all of
these.
While GHS was developed specifically to address the kind of
hydrostatics encountered in naval architecture, ship operation
and marine salvage, it is not restricted to these fields.
Examples of other applications are,
- Non-marine salvage: calculating the moments and energy required
to right an overturned land vehicle containing liquid in one or
more tanks.
- Tank characteristics: volumes, weights and centers of gravity
for arbitrarily complex tanks, pools, lakes, etc.
- Civil engineering: volumes and centers of arbitrarily complex
concrete structures.
Copyright (C) 1997
Creative Systems, Inc.