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Draw an iceberg and see how it would float in water

joshdata.me

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Re: Draw an iceberg and see how it would float in water

#41
post #30

Hmm... what determines whether an iceberg would flip over? I tried drawing bowl-shaped icebergs, one upright and one upside-down. Both stayed in their general orientation without flipping over.

For many shapes, there are multiple points of stability! If you drew a cross, you'd find that it could stabilize on any two corners.

Stability of a floating object is determined by a "righting arm": A torque produced by the horizontal offset between the object's center of mass, and the center of buoyancy (The center of mass of the portion underwater).

Sometimes, that torque produces "positive stability" -- When the object tilts into the water, the center of buoyancy shifts in a direction that increases the righting arm force and pushes the object back upright.

On the other hand, other shapes produce "negative stability" -- Tilting the object shifts the center of buoyancy in a direction that reduces the righting arm force, so the object flips.

This is why ships are (roughly) square shaped when looking at a cross section: If you visualize a floating box tilting to the right, more of the right side will be underwater. This produces a righting arm force that turns the box back to the left.

The worst case for stability is a circle, since no matter what angle the shape is at, the righting moment is always zero -- There's no horizontal offset between the center of mass and center of buoyancy, so a circle never has a righting force.

Re: Draw an iceberg and see how it would float in water

#47

It would be cool if you could draw multiple icebergs and see how they bump into each other/displace the water when multiple are next to each other.

Destructible icebergs would be a favorite as well. I drew a barbell in the air and desperately wanted it to crack in half when it hit the surface.
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