Concrete submarine

No no, I wont hear another bad word about Wellmer you crass ingrates. He has discovered the ideal use for egg shaped concrete structures - cruising the worlds oceans and picking up plastic and other valuable rubbish.

The aerodynamic shape of the craft will enable him to navigate easily through the huge "plastic sea" circling in the middle of the pacific. He can fill the craft up with the stuff, and what he doesnt burn for power, he can sell at profit.

This guy is a genius - we want more!!!!!

 

You´re right rw.

We should applaude to the genius of that man!











And of course I will applaude!







Immediately when he "sets sail" with his concrete sub.



I mean, if ever the sub becomes concrete..........................

 

and of course we'll get more, there's no stopping him

 

You´re so right wardd,

he´s now harvesting the oceans, and makes the next billions in junk:

http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/boat-design/mining-great-pacific-garbage-patch-30064.html

well, he is a expert in junk, so that fits.

 

Why can't the submarine catch the floating garbage?

 

From his drawings it was a big solid ring frame in concrete presumably with reo tied to the hull mesh, I would expect to see some nasty shear stress in the bulkead- hull interface and I'd expect an early crack failure of the matrix in this area.

Earlier in this or the other thread some tried to impress on Wilfred the importance of safety and also the fast emergency surfacing for one atmospehere subs. Even a small crack or seal failure spurting water will quickly overwhelm the fish bladder type depth control. Was there even the slightest indication of significant emergency ballast release?

I'd like to see the suggested engineering systems design (or lack thereof).

 

I believe apex1 is on the right track. It will seep full of water through the cracks and voids in the hull before it crushes. Eveyone inside will get nitrogen narcosis and slide peacefully into unconsciousness. Hull failure in that sense, probably 45 meters

 

how hydrodynamic resistance and stability of submarines are calculated?

 

Hey, finally, a hard number out of hoytodow 45 m, great!


Catstrophic failure depth of Willy's c-sub destructive test wager board:

bntii: 85 m

watson: 0 m

s-tom: 312 m

KnutS: 74 m

Apex: 60 m

gonzo: 16.3 m

hoytodow: 45 m

That's an average of ~99 m (excluding watson who doesn't think the sub

will ever get wet). And ~56 m if you throw out my optimistic 312 m.

Lets go diving Willy!

 

Oh yeah - and scuttling it to make a wave break or an artificial reef voids all bets - like a race scratching!!

I am keeping an eye out in the Columbian Real Estate ads for a really cheap but bullet proof egg shaped beach hut right at the waters edge - as is!

 

Placed vertically, nose up, it'll look kind of cool...

MikeJohns:

"From his drawings it was a big solid ring frame in concrete presumably with reo tied to the hull mesh, I would expect to see some nasty shear stress in the bulkead- hull interface and I'd expect an early crack failure of the matrix in this area."​

I do believe I typed something about a behaviour like a cork.... Also because a wall cross section will have shear stress along the inside of the hull, if I understand the shape correctly...

For steel like materials allowable shear stress is, well: Yield stress, divided by the root of the number 3. (and to that again mulytiply by 2,3,4, 4,5, 6, or divide by the same numbers, or use the tensile strength, pick your choice, but check your figures and choose the one you're most comfortable with... Make it safe). When something starts to happen, well there will remain less cross section to handle tha same stress. Stainless steels, and some other types of steels have "deformation" hardening, I.e as the metallic structure in the steel is squeezed, the internal strength increases, and in some cases; enough to hold.... (a kinda of strange behaviour that's hardly never ever seen upon as an unpleasent thing, not allowable to calculate into the structure though).

Well, concrete hardening, Willner is correct about concrete continues to harden, increase the ability to handle stress, as the time goes, but when designing a hull like that, there should be some specified numbers;
Cure time, samples, samples tested, (and spare samples saved, just to prove you were right at a later stage....). And stress values, material properties documented for all the loads in the same design;

Those values should be there for a hull, like 3 - 6 months from the layup, (example). Noboby can be expected to buy a hull that's not fully hardened until a couple of decades have passed.... Or? (or how do you then document that there's still something left of that reinforcement steel inside...?).

I've said earlier;
tension and
compression, now I'll add;
shear stress properties too....

I'd expect thet the material properties for concrete exposed for shear stress is pretty low...


Waiting for some numbers...

 

You are being difficult Knut!

Wellmer has repeatably provided his 'numbers' on this craft and his prototype:

"Let me start with the facts : troll platform is based on concrete legs that reach down 303 meters with 24 m diameter and 1m wall thickness. Including usual security factors i assume that it could have a destruction depth of some double of this. Which places a positive buoyant cylinder similar as troll at 606 m destruction depth.

My submarine prototype - which i obviously did not test to destruction depth - has almost exactly the double diameter / wall thickness as troll - means it is double as strong and may have a destruction depth of 1212m"

He doubled the thickness from a know structure and therefor has to his mind a known strength.
You have to keep in mind:

"As i said before i am not a static engineer, i am not a material scientist, i have listened carefully to some experts on my advisor board, so i believe i can understand "a little bit" of what is the basics."

You won't get any numbers from Ellmer past the above- that's all he has...
Wellmer is not an engineer. He is a salesman selling a "concept".
Our Wellmer is simply smitten with a material. I think he fails to understand that each structure is a unique and must be engineered as a discrete entity. He also fails to understand the limitations of the material and how well it is already understood in the engineering community:

"I am not sure why US navy is not building in concrete - most probably it has to do with the fact that a warship is part of a sistem - it holds weapon sistems that are normally part of a steel ship, it goes to shipyards skilled for steel building, it has a crew trained on steel repair and maintainance, etc. etc."
Wilfried Ellmer 2008

Perhaps apex also has "missed the boat" and will start to build concrete vessels in his yards!

 

can i mention my wicker submarine concept?

it has unlimited diving depth by equalizing the pressure inside with that outside

 

now how about a plastic sub

 

I'm never difficult...

(though my wife have mention sometimes that I don't alway seem to play the "hard to get" type, more the "hard to want" type.. Don't know what she means by that...)...

Ok he says 606 m/ 24 m dia/ 1 m thickness. _Troll....

Soooo.... Let's assume:

4 m dia / 60 cm thickness/ that would give something like ..330 mm..?

IF:

You have similar layup; one pour...., same concrete (or better), scale up the reinforcement in a similar way, NO WINDOWS...

I know for sure that any engineer suggesting windows somwhere on the legs of the Troll platform would have got the puzzled look, then if they were judged to be not joking, would be immedeately relocated to other work tasks...

I don't know the layup/ reinforcement/ process... So I assume I'm around here for the information....

Curious, not difficult...

Edit: THAT one I screwed up... "4 m dia / 60 cm thickness/ that would give something like ..330 mm..?"
I meant; 4 m diameter 330 mm hull thickness...