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A ship that flips 90 degrees for precise scientific measurements

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Re: A ship that flips 90 degrees for precise scientific measurements

#31

Post by Retric »

ryanmarsh wrote: post #29
gerbilly wrote: post #6

>As research budgets shrink, and fewer people go into oceanographic research, it’s hard to say what is on the horizon for FLIP. Why is it that budgets everywhere from businesses public/private to government to scientific research are always shrinking? It's like it's the invariant of our age: well you know, budgets are shrinking...

I've heard about shrinking budgets for so long if the statements were true I'd expect all the budgets to be $0 by now.

The slope is down just not steep. https://www.aaas.org/sites/default/files/RDGDP;.jpg

Basically, we are down ~45% relative to GDP since 1980 but there are years with minor increases.

Re: A ship that flips 90 degrees for precise scientific measurements

#32

Post by QuercusMax »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #23
jdmichal wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, I would have just towed it out empty, flipped it vertical, then loaded people on. That way, only one orientation needs to be supported at all.

That's what they wanted to do initially but since everyone wanted to be on the flipped ship when it was flipped they refitted it to house people. At that point you may as well find a way cram them in when it's horizontal rather than incur the cost of bringing them out and back on a separate ship.

FLIP doesn't have engines, so it must be towed into place, so you have to have another ship out there in any case.

Re: A ship that flips 90 degrees for precise scientific measurements

#33

Post by maxerickson »

ryanmarsh wrote: post #27
amingilani wrote: post #26

The article didn't address it so I'll just ask: why? Why do you need to build a flipping (no pun intended) ship? Couldn't they have just as easily built a tall floating rig that could be dragged by the same tugboat? Why do they even need to change to boat form? Can't they tug it when it's vertical? Drilling platforms are stable floating structures aren't they? They consist of a stable floating upper platform.

Because the oil industry was already having these built. It was probably just easier and cheaper to buy one "off the shelf" so to speak rather than have a custom ship designed for this purpose. Drilling platforms are large and not designed to regularly circumnavigate the oceans. They float but they're shitty boats.

It's a one off designed to measure sound waves and bearing at the same time.

https://scripps.ucsd.edu/ships/flip/history

Re: A ship that flips 90 degrees for precise scientific measurements

#34

Post by bluGill »

RugnirViking wrote: post #24
KekDemaga wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I learned recently that often when it is said that "budgets are shrinking" it actually means the purposed year over year increase has been cut and in terms of total dollars it continues to increase or stay the same. Not sure if this is the case here but something to look out for.

But due to inflation if it didn't increase the budget would have less value. At least this is the understanding I have usually been given.

A budget can still be "cut" while growing against inflation though. They also refer to a cut compared to projections, and the projections are usually to increase the budget faster than inflation.

Re: A ship that flips 90 degrees for precise scientific measurements

#35

Post by masklinn »

jdmichal wrote: post #21
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're over thinking it. It only needs to move +/-45 in one plane. Weld a hinge to the wall above the sink. Suspend the sink from the hinge. The radius can be determined by how much flex hose you want to purchase for the drain and supply lines. The same should work for toilets and showers. Run all your drain piping toward the corner of the ship that's always under water. Install these on your showers. http://d2ydh70d…

Honestly, I would have just towed it out empty, flipped it vertical, then loaded people on. That way, only one orientation needs to be supported at all.

That means you need an additional ship when towing it into position, and more time is wasted transitioning people to and fro. Here everybody boards in port and they can do on-board setup during towing.

Re: A ship that flips 90 degrees for precise scientific measurements

#36

Post by Declanomous »

cr1895 wrote: post #19
amelius wrote: post #3

Why can't they just use a probe of some kind? Or a small submarine released from the ship?

Because the instability of a submarine is precisely why this ship was conceived in the first place. From the wiki: "Development started in January 1960 after a conversation between MPL researcher Frederick H. Fisher and MPL Director Fred N. Spiess regarding stability problems that Fisher was encountering when using the submarine USS Baya (SS-318) as a research platform." I'm not clear however why a submarine was too…

When I watch things floating in water, objects below the water seem to move back and forth with the movement of the water, as if the object and the water were the same, but things that are partially in the water, they seem to "ride" the water and shift much more slowly.

Based on that, my guess is either surface tension, or the fact that an object that floats on top of a medium is much less dense than one that floats within it. It would probably be a pretty easy to quantify if you had several liquids with known surface tension, so I'm guessing the information is out there already.

Re: A ship that flips 90 degrees for precise scientific measurements

#37

Post by fcbrooklyn »

jdmichal wrote: post #21
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're over thinking it. It only needs to move +/-45 in one plane. Weld a hinge to the wall above the sink. Suspend the sink from the hinge. The radius can be determined by how much flex hose you want to purchase for the drain and supply lines. The same should work for toilets and showers. Run all your drain piping toward the corner of the ship that's always under water. Install these on your showers. http://d2ydh70d…

Honestly, I would have just towed it out empty, flipped it vertical, then loaded people on. That way, only one orientation needs to be supported at all.

I imagine it might be quite dangerous to transfer people from one ship to the other in heavy seas, and in the article they were talking about seas of 30 feet.

Re: A ship that flips 90 degrees for precise scientific measurements

#38

Post by masklinn »

amingilani wrote: post #26

The article didn't address it so I'll just ask: why? Why do you need to build a flipping (no pun intended) ship? Couldn't they have just as easily built a tall floating rig that could be dragged by the same tugboat? Why do they even need to change to boat form? Can't they tug it when it's vertical? Drilling platforms are stable floating structures aren't they? They consist of a stable floating upper platform.

> Couldn't they have just as easily built a tall floating rig that could be dragged by the same tugboat? Why do they even need to change to boat form? Can't they tug it when it's vertical?

Gigantic drag, low stability, and inability to enter ports and harbours when you have a 100ft draft.

> Drilling platforms are stable floating structures aren't they? They consist of a stable floating upper platform.

"Truss and spars" platforms usually have the truss floated on its side and the modules mounted on top of it once it's been floated and ballasted in place. Semi-subs can be tugged into place but that requires big tugs (multiple ~20khp units) and is very, very slow, to attain the speeds at which you can tow RP FLIP (7~10kt) you need a heavy lift ship.

These are not the kind of expenses oceanography can usually afford. Not to mention the semi-sub itself would be significantly more expensive than RP FLIP was, a semi-sub is more than half a billion, FLIP's original cost was about half a million.

Re: A ship that flips 90 degrees for precise scientific measurements

#39

Post by jonathantm »

RugnirViking wrote: post #24
KekDemaga wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I learned recently that often when it is said that "budgets are shrinking" it actually means the purposed year over year increase has been cut and in terms of total dollars it continues to increase or stay the same. Not sure if this is the case here but something to look out for.

But due to inflation if it didn't increase the budget would have less value. At least this is the understanding I have usually been given.

But we say wages are "stagnant" when really "wages continue to shrink" would be more accurate.

Re: A ship that flips 90 degrees for precise scientific measurements

#40

Post by strictnein »

Retric wrote: post #31
ryanmarsh wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard about shrinking budgets for so long if the statements were true I'd expect all the budgets to be $0 by now.

The slope is down just not steep. https://www.aaas.org/sites/default/files/RDGDP;.jpg Basically, we are down ~45% relative to GDP since 1980 but there are years with minor increases.

But that's just for Federal R&D spending.

Worldbank and the OECD paint a much less bleak picture:

http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/GB.XPD.RSDV.GD.ZS?locati...

https://data.oecd.org/rd/gross-domestic-spending-on-r-d.htm

These data sets include all forms of R&D spending, not just federally funded ones:

"Gross domestic spending on R&D is defined as the total expenditure (current and capital) on R&D carried out by all resident companies, research institutes, university and government laboratories, etc., in a country"

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