Hydrostatics and Ship Stability
Learn why ships float, how they stay upright, and what happens when they don't — covering the hydrostatics and stability analysis that naval architects use to design survivable vessels.
About this course
Most people accept that ships float without thinking too hard about why. This course makes you think hard about why, and then takes you further: into what keeps a ship from rolling over, what happens when flooding breaches a compartment, and how a naval architect runs the calculations that answer those questions before a ship ever touches the water. You'll start with Archimedes and end with a complete stability analysis workflow, building each concept on the one before it.
The course moves through five units. Buoyancy and hull geometry come first, so you understand what displacement and draft actually mean when you're looking at a real lines drawing. From there you'll work through the geometry of stability — the metacenter, the GZ curve, and the difference between a ship that rights itself and one that capsizes. Units 3 and 4 shift from geometry to consequence: where weight goes, how trim changes with loading, and what flooding does to a ship's ability to survive. The USS Cole attack is used as a case study because it's one of the clearest real-world tests of damage stability design on record.
By the end, you'll run a full stability analysis from scratch: hull geometry to GZ curve to damage scenario check. This isn't a course about memorizing formulas. It's about understanding the physics well enough that the formulas make sense — and knowing what to do when the numbers tell you something is wrong.
Details
Skills you'll learn
Hydrostatic Analysis
Calculate displacement, draft, and freeboard from hull geometry and interpret a lines drawing the way a naval architect would.
Stability Assessment
Determine a vessel's metacentric height and construct a GZ curve to evaluate its righting behavior through large angles of heel.
Weight and Trim Management
Trace how changes in loading and ballast shift the vertical center of gravity and alter a ship's fore-and-aft trim.
Damaged Stability Evaluation
Apply flooding and compartmentalization calculations to assess whether a damaged vessel meets Navy survivability criteria.
End-to-End Stability Workflow
Execute a complete stability analysis from raw hull geometry through GZ curve generation to a damage scenario compliance check.
Syllabus
5 units • 11 lessons • 5 assessments
Learning activities
Every lesson gives you several ways to learn.
Frequently asked questions
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