AUDIO_8279

Submarines have two main functions: moving vertically and moving horizontally. Moving horizontally is simple, using motors at the back or front. Moving vertically is more complex. Submarines use buoyancy to control their depth. Instead of creating neutral buoyancy, designers use valves to fill the outside of the submarine with air or water. When the submarine is above the surface, it is filled with air, allowing it to float. To go underwater, the valves open, letting water fill the outer column, decreasing buoyancy. To resurface, compressed air tanks are opened, filling the submarine with air and causing it to rise. This uses natural properties and is really cool. Hi. Today we're talking about submarines and how they work. So, essentially, submarines have two main functions. They need to move around vertically, up and down, and they need to move around horizontally, so forward and backwards. Horizontally is pretty simple. They just have motors on the back or front that can push the submarine forward, and that allows the submarine to, you know, glide through the water. However, going up and down is much more complicated. So there's this property with liquids called buoyancy, and so buoyancy allows an object to either go up or down based on its weight relative to the outside. So this works in every liquid, although some liquids are denser than others, so it doesn't exactly work for some. However, this is really valuable when you're trying to move a submarine up and down. So rather than creating neutral buoyancy, submarine designers decided that it would be pretty smart if we actually used valves to fill the outside of the submarine with air or with water. And so, essentially, when the submarine is above the surface, it has this tank outside of the main cabin, and this tank is filled with air. This air tank fully encompasses the outside, and when they want to go down, you know that property like with a compressed straw? If you hold the top of a straw and put it in water, the air will still stay in the straw. So they're essentially using that property to keep it afloat and above the water. And there's these valves on the top and the opening on the bottom such that when they open the valves on the top, water starts seeping into this outer column around the exterior of the submarine, and that essentially allows it to get filled with water, which then decreases the buoyancy, which, you guessed it, makes the ship go farther down underwater. This is a really important property, so don't forget that. Now, there's a bit of a problem, right? We want this submarine to go back up to the surface. Otherwise, we're just going to be stuck down there forever and ever, dying at the bottom of the abyss, which we don't want. So, there's also compressed air tanks that the submarine takes down with it, and so what they do is they open these valves. The air tanks are usually at the top of the main cabin, and they can open these air tanks, and then it fills with air, causing the submarine to go up. And so this is basically all taking advantage of a natural property, which, personally, I think is super cool.