Train submarine

Discussion in 'Boat Design' started by mistereddb, Oct 26, 2013.

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  1. MikeJohns
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    MikeJohns Senior Member

    The trouble is it's all problems, there's nothing even remotely sensible about the concept from the start. So you aren't going to get many people slowly taking you through and explaining all the reasons why your day dream isn't sensible, it would become a tome on Naval Architecture, structural mechanics and elastic instability, submarine design and operation and economies of cargo handling.

    Perhaps you can just accept that it's not feasible from any sensible assessment. That is it's not sensible in any regard, from operational impracticality through to structural inadequacy . That's even without getting into the cost and compelxity of actually operating such a long submersible, or maintaining it even if it were remotely feasible on other design issues.

    It's a dead duck, forget it.
     
  2. fredrosse
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    fredrosse USACE Steam

    Seems like everyone with any practical knowledge is just having fun on this subject. It is so so far from practical or remotely workable on many issues, just a whimsical concept by someone who has perhaps benevolent thoughts about helping to solve a perceived problem.

    It reminds me of the congressman who decided we could rid ourselves of high level nuclear waste by sending it into outer space on Atlas rockets. Good for NASA's budget too.... Never mind that we would have to launch about 100 ICBM rockets every year, and one rocket failure might make the US East Coast instantly uninhabitable for centuries. Believe it or not, the US paid several hundred thousand $$$ to study this!!!
     
  3. parkland
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    parkland Senior Member

    I'll probably get smacked upside the head,
    but I like thinking outside the box... so far outside the box, that sometimes I can't even see the box anymore.

    OK 1st, the problem is that you're talking about "thick steel hull", but to put it into perspective, picture about 100 feet of plastic 1" electrical conduit laying in a wavy lake with just 1 foot waves.
    2nd problem, that I see anyways, is that the current system doesn't really have many flaws... Where there aren't ports, there are trucks to get to the ports.
    Also, as much as bad weather is hard on ships, they get by. I don't think that really effects the cost or serviceability to an area.

    I could be wrong though.

    Now about the actual practicalness of the idea, I don't think it would work as you describe. A super long rigid needle shaped body would be just waiting to crumble in half.
    Allow me to put my own insane spin on this, cause I'm just this crazy.

    I think it would have to be segmented, and the human operations cabin would be a room sitting about 100 ft above the submarine part. Not having humans underwater simplifies everything. The cabin would double as an escape pod if the submarine sunk. It would function as a life raft. It would ride 10 or 20 ft above the waves, on a giant fin shaped pole.
    Let's also get rid of the train idea, and just have containers sitting on rollers.
    If we say we want to operate at 100 ft under water, water pressure would be 43.3 psi for fresh water. Let's say that because of waver travelling over, we want a safety margin for that, so let's just say 100 psi. I'm pretty sure pressure vessels are usually tested to double the normal operating capacity, so let's say it's actually built to withstand 200 PSI. This should allow pretty good safety margin for use at 100 ft depth, where pressure should be around 50 psi.
    A design to hold back 200 PSI shouldn't be too elaborate. Plate steel, a few ribs thrown on for looks.
    Each segment could be 500 ft long, have a small engine in the back, and a fin style mast, for air intake and an antenna to communicate to the wheelhouse / control room.
    The segment would be round, with a square inside corridor for the containers.
    On bottom would be concrete ballast, and air tanks on top to blow air in to make it neutral bouyancy.

    Each segment could be remotely controlled, and so what you would do, say if you wanted to deliver a segment full ov containers to someone, is you would bring the vessel to a stop.
    You would select the segments that are going ashore, and the mechanical linkages would undo. the segments in front, or behind, would reverse away, and then you would remotely drive that segment to the dock, or beach, or whatever. Maybe someone on shore would have a computer, and take over the steering of the segment you release.
    They could have also had another segment loaded up, ready for you to latch onto. Kind of much like how a train would operate.

    I gotta say; I don't think it would cost as much as has been speculated above... but I'm just not seeing any benefit?
    Like let's say that it was done in a modular way, so start up costs were minimal.
    How is this going to be cost effective? whats the pitch?
    I don't think fuel economy would be that great.
    I don't think capacity would be better.
    I don't think it could be much faster.

    I don't think it would cost as much as a submarine, if done the way I said with the crew cabin out of the water.
    I don't think it would be impossible to do, just not seeing the application.

    Emma Maersk:
    Burning 20.6 tons/hour = 6724 gals/hour. At 31 kts/hour, this equals .0046 nautical miles/gallon. At 6076 ft/nautical mile, that's 28 feet/gallon of fuel burned. Thats carrying 11,000 20 ft containers.
    397 m length
    56 m width
    16 m submerged.
    Rough wetted area guesstimate:
    397 + 16 + 16 = 429
    56 + 16 + 16 = 88
    =37752 m2, again a guestimate, a box the size of emmas hull underwater.

    So let's spin it around.
    Submarine:
    11,000 x 20 ft containers = 67 kilometers length, and thats assuming container butted to container all the way through.
    Let's assume that with a 10 ft x 10 ft corridor, for the containers, the round shape of the submarine will be a 16 ft diameter
    Thats a 4.88 m diameter.
    = 15.3 m circumference.
    So 67 km length x 15.3 m
    67,000 x 15.3 =
    1,025,100.
    1,025,100 (submarine wetted area) / 37752 (emmas wetted area) = 27.

    Thats 27 times more wetted area than emma.
    Of course these are my very rough calculations, and I may have made a mistake somewhere.
    I don't know much about wetted area, but logic is telling me that the submarine is a no-go.

    Somewhere it was said, that past 20:1 L:W ratio, there isn't a difference.
    Well a 67,000 meter x 4.8 meter submarine would be 13958 : 1 L:W ratio.

    I thought this was a cool idea at first, but if the truth is remotely even close to what I have worked out here, theres no way.
     
  4. Mr Efficiency
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    Mr Efficiency Senior Member

    The Worm Sub is strictly for the true believers, I'm inclined to think the tower of Babel made more sense. And the view was much better too !
     
  5. parkland
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    parkland Senior Member

    Wait-

    What if, in between each segment, there was a hinge, and a water pump, and a rear facing jet, so as the structure conforms to the waves; it pumps water behind it?

    Ahhh forget about it, theres not always waves.
    That was a stupid idea.
    We'll have to use a geet fuel processor, fuel bubbler to burn water, fuel line magnets, hydrogen generator, and a fuel cell the size of a soccer ball that provides 100 megawatts of power.
     
  6. Mr Efficiency
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    Mr Efficiency Senior Member

    How does the train get past the hinge ? :rolleyes:
     
  7. Stumble
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    Stumble Senior Member

    How about instead of using diesel we power it with solar panels. We could put them on an awning running the length of the sub.
     
  8. kerosene
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    kerosene Senior Member

    Time for a kickstarter project
     
  9. Mr Efficiency
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    Mr Efficiency Senior Member

    I'm tipping mistereddb isn't amused by all this negativism, he may never post again !
     
  10. Vulkyn
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    Vulkyn Senior Member

    When i first joined i was bombarded with negativism, it took me a while to realise its actually for my own good so i don't go out and do something stupid.

    I loved the honesty if he is truly seeking advice he should be really happy right now.
     
  11. Mr Efficiency
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    Mr Efficiency Senior Member

    Aside from anything else, the train's whistle would frighten marine life.
     
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  12. SamSam
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    SamSam Senior Member

    Getting run into by other vessels might be an issue also.
     
  13. Vulkyn
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    Vulkyn Senior Member

    It would be interesting having floating train stations in the water ... or underwater ....
     
  14. jonr
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    jonr Senior Member

    I thought that the coke smugglers had switched to towable, submersible torpedoes. Maybe that could be applied to legitimate, small scale, rough beach loading/unloading. The boat stays in deep water but some type of sealed up, wheeled, semi submersible gets hauled in and out by cable.
     

  15. mistereddb
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    mistereddb Junior Member

    SamSam
    As the world’s ninth-largest energy producer, Australia has abundant renewable and non-renewable energy resources.
    Despite these resources, we are heavily dependent on imports of refined petroleum products and crude oil to meet our liquid fuel demand and our import dependency has increased over recent years. Any major interruption to the supply chain would significantly impact our way of life. http://www.mynrma.com.au/media/Fuel_Security_Report.pdf

    When I drove a semi overnight on the Hume for four years in a line of other trucks, I often thought what would happen if we had no fuel as supplies cannot be delivered to a supermarket in a steam train.

    Fuel security was my main purpose for the trainsub because as they would not be located with radar it would be extremely hard to locate and destroy 100 of them all taking different routes and when I started this thread I thought I had put this up but then thought it had been deleted due to the political nature of it. Perhaps I just made a mistake making this point.

    However rather than dreaming about high tech submarines to protect our fuel supply I thought that 100 el cheapo subs that could help isolated places in the world could be a better option for example here at Nowra we have a paper mill and an ethanol factory and these each have a train service them regularly. These type of factories could be set up anywhere in the world to provide communities access to world trade and making a lot of friends in the process.
     
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