Re: DiHydrogen monoxide

On 24 Oct 2007 13:10:06 GMT, Dennis <tsalagiNOSPAM@xxxxxxxx> wrote:

Suppose that oceans were made of liquid methane, like they are on
Titan. How would you have to build ships then?

you can have some real brittleness issues with many steels at the low
temperature of liquid methane. There are some stainless steel alloys
that are acceptable.What about bouyancy? Liquid hydrogen has a density
of .05 while with liquid oxygen it is .85. CRC didn't have a density
figure for liquid methane. My guess is that it is somewhat lighter
than water, but I don't really know. If it is less dense, you may have
to add lots of freeboard and reserve bouyancy to what would be
adequate for a waterborn ship.

Casady
.