sub build underway christmas 2011

tuggy,

Are you off your meds by chance?

Give it a rest, you're wasting your time and energy.

Get some help.

-Tom

 

I still think converting a tourist sub would be a ton easier than building from scratch... Start with the pressure vessel and just add a diesel for surface operations. Probably be a lot cheaper too.

 

IMO there are 5 essential ingredients required for an amateur to build any boat bigger than a dinghy:

Time
Space
Money
Arrogance
Stupidity.

All apply to me, as I've said before.

Building a submarine when you've never built any other boat of any displacement/complexity goes beyond the standard into raving lunacy IMO.

Using a material where you can't really control the properties as-built compounds this.

Not understanding the effects of water pressure compounds it further. Yeah I know you've Googled all sorts of stuff, doesn't mean you actually know anything. You clearly don't understand what you've read. One of my clients runs a dive equipment service centre certified to ISO 9000 standard. I wrote his software and I know a lot about the high pressure side of equipment plus I've been a qualified SCUBA diver for over 40 years, and I have a science degree. I still don't know anywhere near enough to build a sub from scratch, without any engineering drawings, plans, material specs etc etc.

Ignoring advice from people who have worked in/on sub control systems because the information conflicts with your beliefs compounds idiocy even further.

I predict you will never build a submarine hull as described in this thread.

If you do manage to do this, I further predict that you will never get the control & mechanical systems installed & working.

If you manage *that*, I predict that the first use is also the last and you will be very fortunate to survive it.

Now if you object to my opinions, fine, go & prove me wrong and I'll acknowledge my misjudgement. Until then, you said you were out of this thread and even this site and I'm making no apologies for anything I've said.

As for offering advice on the tugboat thread, that project has some hope of success and falls somewhat inside my skill/experience envelope. If you're unhappy with my offering any advice at all, don't ask me any more questions. It really is no skin off of my nose.

I didn't mention anywhere on this or any other site that I was building a boat until I actually had substantial progress under my belt. I suggest that you do the same.

PDW

 

Don't get me wrong, Doug. I have concerns that you or another will drown in this think if the actual crushing doesn't kill you outright.
By the way, you said, "thinking people on here-not you necessarily- would actually have something useful to say" - Ouch!

I didn't post that video, either.

 

You do realize subs started out from being built by people who had never built subs? And didn't have your background in related science?

 

So wouldn't it be advantageous to benefit from that acquired knowledge and not try to re-invent the wheel?

 

Building on over 100 years of sub history and knowledge, it seems to me a small group of people with relevant backgrounds who have never built a boat before could nevertheless build a practical sub.

 

There is no such thing as a practical sub.

-Tom

 

Perhaps

 

Here's another sub built by amateurs.
It killed 3 whole crews.
And also, try to find the book SUBMARINE DESIGN by Ulrich Gabler, Verlag, Bonn, 2000.
It's in English and in great detail lays out an overview of the design process for modern subs as built in Germany for clients around the world.
Chapters include: Diving and Stability, Dynamics, Hull Structure, Propulsion Plants etc.
One very interesting section lays out the differences between a "submarine" and a "submersible".
WW2 boats were the latter while modern boats are true submarines.

 

A lot of people have wondered what Hunley was thinking when he built the Hunley with open top ballast tanks instead of using sealed bulkheads.

 

Submarine Darwinism I guess. He naively thought all would stay level like a boat on the surface and did not understand how out of control a submerged sub can get, which is very.
Now we know the ballast tanks go outside, are open on the bottom, and are subject to little pressure, so are much lighter than the P hull.
Same with the fuel, it's outside and floats on sea water because the tanks are open to the sea at the bottom.
Hunley was a genius, he just was under tremendous war pressure and did the best he could with what he knew, what he had to work with, and an enemy army breathing down his neck.
If he had more leisure for model and development tests, he would have figured it out I think.
Or maybe in those last dark drowning moments he did.

 

Successful wooden steam-powered submarine

http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2008/08/submarines-1.html#tp


"The thinking at the time was that it was almost impossible to run a steam engine underwater because it would use up all the oxygen and convert the inside of the ship into an oven. To overcome this, Monturiol invented a chemical furnace based on a reaction between potassium chlorate, zinc and manganese dioxide - a process that produced enough heat to boil water to run the steam engine. To complement this ingenuity, the reaction gave off oxygen as a by-product."

 

Excellent link, thanks. I want one.

 

It would be interesting to know how chemical reactors compare in energy density to batteries.