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Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] Re: sub
--- "Michael B. Holt" <mholt@richmond.edu> wrote:
> What was done was a sphere of hexagonal pieces of plexiglas were
> assembled into a ball. One entered the sphere through a
> door made of the hexagons, and then one walked away across
> the surface of the water. So the idea itself is not impossible.
Please provide that link!
The geometry might be a little more involved... something close to a sphere can be achieved with a
combination of hexagons and pentagons (20 hexes & 12 pents IIRC), look at a soccer ball for an
example. A reasonable spheroid can be done with 20 matching triangles, five meeting at each
corner; slighly less round (but therefore perhaps better for the purpose?) is possible with 12
pentagons, three meeting at each corner. This all has to do with the "Platonic solids" if anybody
cares about the mathematics.
There are (literally) infinite possible variations with two or more flat shapes. And of course
faceted near-cigar-shapes and whatnot are possible too.
I wonder, though - if you build a faceted submersible, it seems to me that the pressure on the
hull will be distributed very unevenly - seams vs middle of facets vs corners etc - could be a
source of weakness, no? And many seams equals lots of work, too.
A faceted sub would also seem inefficient in terms of drag, again seams and discontinuities make
for turbulence and for pressure gradients which might create spurious "lifts" in odd directions,
making for steering issues as well as for drag.
Or do I miss the point completely (hardly difficult to believe!)
-Lew
=====
"Yo no soy marinero / Soy capitan"
- Traditional Mexican Lyric (La Bamba)
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