Question

You are a treasure hunter and find an ancient Egyptian shipwreck under the Mediterranean Sea. The ship is filled with silver bars (at points in Egyptian history silver was more valuable than gold!). The shipwreck is located 1500 m below the water’s surface. Sea water has a density of about 1020 kg/m3. Silver has a density of 10500 kg/m3. The Young’s modulus of silver is 8.3 x 1010 N/m2. The shear modulus of silver is 3.0 x 1010 N/m2. The bulk modulus of silver is 1.0 x 1011 N/m2. Assume the atmospheric pressure is 1 atm or 1.013 x 105 Pa.
(a) What is the absolute pressure at the shipwreck? (b) Assume the bars have a mass of 3.11 kg each. What is the volume of a bar like this? (c) You have an open-water elevator to bring the bars back up to your excavation ship. The maximum force that the elevator can exert on its load is 1500 N. How many silver bars can you bring up at a time? (d) How much does the volume of one silver bar change when you bring it to the surface?

Answer 1