RE: [PSUBS-MAILIST] Isn't 'Mini book review.' anymore--pressure test

[Alec Smyth <Asmyth@changepoint.com>]

Phil has an interesting rig for testing small things like this. Its a huge
cannon shell (looks like a battleship round) that is hollow and has a
screw-on cap. He places something like a light in it and pressurizes to some
ridiculous pressure. For testing whole subs, he's got a much larger test
chamber right out on the street.

If you want to test entire subs, you can also pay the navy to use their
pressure chamber in MD. There is also a university that rents out such
facilities. Somewhere in the PSUBS archives there are estimates on prices,
and contacts. As I recall the fees depended on setup time, which could vary
considerably but was in the tens of thousands. The beauty of the method, if
you can afford to pay for it, is that they put a capillary tube out of your
sub and track the compression of the hull. As soon as the compression goes
beyond a linear relationship with the pressure, they stop. In other words,
they can stop when the elastic limit of the material is reached, but before
making a loud CRUMP sound.

Alec



-----Original Message-----
From: John Brownlee [mailto:jonnie@scarymonsters.net]
Sent: Thursday, April 11, 2002 4:43 PM
To: personal_submersibles@psubs.org
Subject: Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] Isn't 'Mini book review.' anymore--pressure
test


	I think the place a chamber would be very useful would be for
pressure-resistant outside fixtures, like lights or motor pods. It could be
small, and save some trouble by finding problems before installation and a
full-up depth test.
	What do the pro's do for testing during assembly?

							John

John Brownlee
Chief Systems Administrator
Scary Monsters Network
jonnie at scarymonsters dot net