Question

Imagine that you are working for a salvage company. An empty shipping container was accidently dropped by a crane while being loaded onto a cargo ship. It is now sitting at the bottom of the harbour, 12 metres below the surface of the water. It needs to be moved as it is blocking ships from using the wharf.

The shipping container is 6.06 m long, 2.59m high and 2.43 m wide, has a usable internal volume of 33 cubic metres, a total volume of 38.14 cubic metres and a weight of 2.3 tonnes (2,300 kg). At the moment the shipping container is full of water.

You plan to seal the container and pump out some of the water from inside it, replacing the water with air. You will keep pumping water out until the contained floats to the surface.

How many cubic metres of water will you need to pump out? The density of sea-water is 1060 kg per cubic metre, and the density of air is 1.2 kg per cubic metre.

Answer 1