Potholes

[jUKEjOINT65]

Why are most portholes on ships round?

[bernardo]

It's the strongest shape for a window and less likely to break of burst inwards in the event of a catastrophe.

[andy hughes]

It's also an easier shape to creat an watertight seal.

[Doolallygirl]

And why not? A circle is a good a shape as any!

[GuavaHalf]

Cracks are post likely to appear at a point of weakness in a structure. The corner of a window is such a point. Round window - no corners.

[fly258]

And the window fitter didn't have to worry if it was set square in the side of the ship!

[Reg007]

See also around windows fitted on airplanes. They have round corners too. Stronger structure, no defects!

[woofgang]

actually all portholes on ships are round, the ones which are not round are not portholes :-))

[Drewhound]

Is that correct woofgang? If port comes from the latin porta it must predate round holes which are quite recent

[Bob Carter]

For learning more about the structural lessons to be learned why not go and look up De Havilland Comet on the web. The designers put in round windows for what was the world's first jet airliner but the airlines said their customers wanted bigger squarer windows to see out of. Only after a series of horrenous crashes was it discovered how the weak points at corners caused metal fatigue and failure. The British air industry never recovered from this and Boeing especially took the lead in airliner technology. More was learnt from this about metal fatique than from any other individual project ... and the testing was done by submerging the fuselage in water repeatedly until it failed.