Bulkheads are internal walls in ships, airplanes, and spaceships that divide space into compartments for storage and accommodation. They also provide structural stability and safety by containing fires, floods, and other problems. The Chinese were the first to use bulkheads in their ships, which quickly spread to other shipbuilding cultures. Bulkhead seats on airplanes offer more legroom.
A bulkhead is a wall inside a vessel such as a ship, airplane, or spaceship. Bulkheads perform a number of structural functions and there are a wide range of variations on the basic bulkhead design that can be used in specific applications. The term “bulkhead” can also be used to describe a retaining wall in a mine or along a beach used for flood and erosion control.
The Chinese appear to have been the first to use bulkheads in their ships. When sailors from other regions encountered Chinese vessels, they took note of the bulkhead design and adopted it for themselves, causing it to spread rapidly across many shipbuilding cultures. Before the use of bulkheads, the entire hull of a vessel would have been opened up, creating a cavernous space.
One of the most obvious reasons to install bulkheads is to divide a space into usable compartments. The use of bulkheads inside a ship, for example, breaks up space, which makes it easier for cargo to be stored and people to be accommodated aboard the boat. Historically, the use of bulkheads has dramatically changed shipping, allowing companies to seize various products and organize their cargoes without having to worry about weight shift, as bulkheads hold materials in place.
Bulkheads also contribute to a vessel’s structural stability and rigidity. In heavy seas, a ship with bulkheads usually withstands conditions better than a ship without these internal walls, and the same is true of aircraft, which regularly have to withstand severe shear forces. Engineers refined the design of the bulkheads to provide maximum structural stability while adding minimal amounts of weight to ensure boats are still able to move.
The last and perhaps most important reason to install a bulkhead is for safety. The compartmentalized design created with bulkheads allows people to contain fires, floods, and other problems so that an entire vessel isn’t ruined in the event of an accident or sabotage. The demand for bulkheads for safety reasons is common in many areas of the world, and this concern also determines the materials used in their construction and the fittings that can be attached to them.
Incidentally, in situations where people can choose their seat on an airplane, bulkhead seats are usually the better choice, because they have more legroom. Emergency exit rows may also be a good choice, as they also have additional legroom, but some responsibilities are placed on the people sitting in these seats if an emergency evacuation occurs.
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