A Ship Floating On Bubbles Of Air
By Nick April 1, 2008
A ship that will almost travel on a bubble pillow is getting nearer and nearer of being created. A concept devised by the director of the Advanced Maritime Transport Technology Department, Yoshiaki Kodama, from Japan’s National Maritime Research Institute in Tokyo and is called the Bubbling Ship.
The boat would have a mechanism that will produce bubbles below the bow of the ship and they will have the role of reducing friction and increasing gas mileage by traveling along the hull. Their point is to create a blanket of bubbles under the argosy but in the meantime to keep the propellers undisturbed.
Some of the problems would be to keep control of the bubbles at high speed and to calculate the cost of maintaining the bubble mechanism to be lower compared to the cost of the regular fuel. The architects have to confront their ideas with the drag obstacles they are put against, like wave drag, pressure drag and frictional drag.
The Bubbling Ship is still at the stage of a concept, with a good basic idea, but still several problems that need to be solved. Scientists really need research grants at this point, and it looks like they will find plenty of companies interested in such a ship. We look forward to see the evolution of this matter.
Topics: Transportation |
3 Responses to “A Ship Floating On Bubbles Of Air”
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The technology has been around for a long time, ok the ’70’s (and we know how THAT turned out!). Experiments with smaller craft that expelled bubbles along the entire length of the craft showed slightly increased efficiency, but not enough to justify the expense of a pressurized double-hull set-up and the additional weight and energy required. It also decreased the bouancy of the craft.
You can’t just bow bubbles out of the bow because, hey, bubbles rise to the surface pretty rapidly.
Looks pretty…won’t work
“Looks pretty…won’t work”
Yeah luther, your high school grade grasp of science really shows.
Ovlet, can’t you see the guy knows what he is talking about, he just needed a quick way to summarise so douches like you would understand