the.com/bulkhead door
A wall that agreed to work, so the ship stays afloat when the hull doesn't.
means A heavy, sealable door set into a ship's internal dividing wall, built to seal off compartments and stop water (or fire) from spreading.
from 'Bulkhead' comes from 'bulk,' an old nautical word for the cargo or framework inside a ship's hull (itself likely borrowed from a Scandinavian root meaning a heap or balk of timber), plus 'head,' here meaning the end or boundary of something — so a bulkhead was originally the partition marking off the hold's limits. 'Door' is just the ordinary English word, from Old English 'duru,' unchanged in spirit since someone first hung a plank on hinges.
- origin
- Titanic's bulkheads didn't reach the ceiling, fatally
- function
- Seals compartments so one leak doesn't sink everything
- etymology
- Bulk meant cargo, head meant partition wall
- beyond ships
- Used in submarines, planes, and server rooms too