How much weight can a 15×25 foot barge with 4 foot sides support?

  • Context: High School 
  • Thread starter Thread starter christoph8025
  • Start date Start date
  • Tags Tags
    Weight
Join the discussion
Registration is free. Ask a follow-up in this thread, or start your own.
Sign up Log in
4 replies · 2K views
christoph8025
Messages
9
Reaction score
0
I posted a question the other day about pontoons and the weight it could support and you guys did great with that. We actually found because of you guys that we wouldn't be able to build what we wanted.

Hopefully you guys can answer the same question with this new item we want to purchase.

We are looking to get a barge style boat. The dimensions of the boat are 15 foot wide and 25 feet long with 4 foot sides. Now it isn't your typical bage with a deck on top. This will not have a deck. We will be building the structure subsank into the barge.

Hopefully some one can answer the question of how much weight we can have in this thing without it sinking.

Cant wait to hear the response. thanks

Chris
 

Discussion

Mathematics news on Phys.org
This should be easy for you to solve yourself. In order to find how much weight any thing will support in water you just find the volume and then find how much that much water will weigh. In other words find the volume of that shape and multiple by 60 (approximate weight in pounds of a cubic foot of water).
 
DaleSwanson said:
This should be easy for you to solve yourself. In order to find how much weight any thing will support in water you just find the volume and then find how much that much water will weigh. In other words find the volume of that shape and multiple by 60 (approximate weight in pounds of a cubic foot of water).

So the dimensions are 25 x 15 x 4= 1500 x 60 = 90,000.

So is that the total weight that the barge can handle ( taking into acount the weight of the bage itsself)?
 
So fully submerged it could hold 45 tons; half-submerged, 22.5 tons. You'll want to subtract from this the weight of the barge itself, probably a few tons.
 
christoph8025 said:
So the dimensions are 25 x 15 x 4= 1500 x 60 = 90,000.

So is that the total weight that the barge can handle ( taking into acount the weight of the bage itsself)?

Yes.