Transportation of goods by sea in the North is fraught with difficulties. The thick crust of ice covering the ocean surface impedes the movement of ships, making normal navigation impossible. To solve this problem, they use auxiliary vessels - icebreakers. These powerful ships are capable of breaking ice cover, creating passageways for transport caravans.
Instructions
Step 1
From the school physics course, it is known that a body immersed in a liquid is acted upon by a force that pushes the object upwards and is equal to the weight of the displaced liquid. An additional lateral pressure acts on a ship in the ice, which can crush an ordinary ship like an eggshell. For this reason, the cross-section of the hull of the icebreaker is made in the shape of a nut, and the waterline is made below the widest part of the icebreaker. The forces acting on the icebreaker will try to push it out without crushing it.
Step 2
The design features of the icebreaker do not end there. A system of reinforced frames and stringers is hidden behind the thickened skin of the icebreaker. The entire hull of the ship is divided by watertight partitions into several compartments. The "ice belt" runs along the waterline - a reinforced strip capable of withstanding hard ice.
Step 3
In the bow and stern of the ship's hull there is a bevel of the contours. This was done to make it easier for the icebreaker to move in the ice in the shuttle mode, that is, forward and backward. To overcome the friction of the body against the ice mass, a special washer device is also used, which has small holes through which air bubbles are pumped.
Step 4
The operation of an icebreaker is not a simple ice breaking, as the name of the vessel might suggest. It should be borne in mind that the part of the ship that is carried out of the water and crawls onto the ice layer ceases to balance and gains additional weight. Therefore, it is more convenient for an icebreaker not to chop the ice, but to break it with its own mass. The movements of the vessel in some ways really resemble the work of a shuttle: the icebreaker retreats back, and then, with all its mass, swoops down on the edge of the ice cover. The energy of repeated blows allows you to effectively break up hummocks several meters thick.
Step 5
The inventors thought about how to make the work of the icebreaker even more efficient. Attempts to melt the ice or cut it in the direction of the ship's movement with devices in the form of a milling cutter did not justify themselves. And then the idea arose to try not to work as a ship as a cleaver, but to use the principle of operation of a razor blade.
Step 6
The essence of the invention lies in the fact that the modified icebreaker is divided into surface and underwater parts, interconnected by narrow and sharp knives. Such a scheme would significantly reduce energy consumption and accelerate movement in ice. So far, such ships are only being designed, but have already received the name of semi-submersible ships.
