How much water does it take to float an aircraft carrier?

well - the displacement of a nimitz-class aircraft carrier is 100,000 tons. that means when the carrier is sitting in water, the underwater part of the aircraft carrier takes up a volume that, if filled by water, would weigh 100,000 tons, or 200 million pounds. the density of water is 62 lbs per cubic foot, so that means the carrier displaces around 3.2 million cubic feet of water, or 24 million gallons.

however, if you had a container that was the same shape as the hull of the carrier, but just a tiny bit larger, you would only need to fill the container with a very tiny bit of water. then, when you move the aircraft carrier into the container, the water will spread out and form a thin layer between the hull and the container. the ship is still floating on this thin layer, even if it's only like a millimeter thick! i don't really know how to calculate the volume of this thin layer without knowing the actual surface area of the submerged part of the ship.

however you could model the underside of the carrier as a cylinder. the length of the carrier is 317 meters and the beam is 41 meters, so the surface area of a half-cylinder with these dimensions is the length of the ship times half the circumference of the cylinder, so A = 317 * pi * 41 m = 40,000 square meters. so the volume of water covering this area in a 1-mm thick layer is 40 cubic meters, or about 10,500 gallons. still quite a bit of water.

of course, it is pretty impractical to suggest that you could build a container that is exactly one millimeter larger than the outside of a ship. if you had any places that stuck out just a tiny bit, the ship would no longer be floating and just be resting on the container. so a more reasonable estimate might be a container that is one meter larger all around, which means you'd need about 10 million gallons of water to fill the container.

Aircraft Carrier Weight

Aircraft Carrier Displacement

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RE:

How much water does it take to float an aircraft carrier?

Another odd question once asked me by my father, a marine architect and engineer. The answer is surprising!

I think it can float on a gallon of water.

The laws of physics say that any object lighter than water will float in the water, no matter how little water there is.

Please give me the Answer asap..... PLEASEEEE (I answered both of your questions)

Yesss. it depends of the shape of the container

Submersion depth would be weight of carrier = weight / displacement of water plus one ounce (water)

honestly, i dont really understand the question. Any amount really, its a matter of whether or not it falls over due to lack of support...