We read alot about the types of floor in many books of ship construction but most of the time we are not able to visualise as to how different types of floor looks like. While having discussion with a naval architect I came up with this question and he gave me an excellent way to visualise the 3 major types of floor. Now I just want you all to try to visualise what I am about to tell you.
Let’s take a bulkead as big as your drawing room. Now you can imagine that if this bulkhead need to support any load it needs to be strengthened. Now this work is done by floors.
I want you now to put a floor in transverse direction which moves from left to right and top to bottom as a whole. Now make some holes for drain at the bottom and a manhole to allow passage within the bulkhead. This is what a solid floor is.
Now btw the bulkhead and the solid floor there is a big space that is also need to be strengthened. This can be done by placing a solid bar from left to right and supported at the end by brackets but hollow in middle.i.e the two solid bars at top and bottom have a big space in between and are independent of each other. This is bracket floor.
Now the last on is water tight floor. It is a floor mainly at the ends and are fully water tight i.e there is no drain hole and manhole in this floor.