Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] Submersible Design Software

I am doing detailed engineering on a one-man, one-atmosphere boat designated the R300 that is rated for 300 fsw. I use AutoCAD Mechanical Desktop to model, in 3-D space, each part of the boat down to the nuts and bolts. With this program, it is easy to move equipment about to evaluate impact on trim and generate 2-D and 3-D technical drawings. I then transfer CG of all parts and CB of all displacements to Excel spreadsheet for overall CG and CB calcs. I use the same Excel file for material take-off of all parts as well as drag and propulsion calcs. Finally I use ALGOR for FE analysis of pressure hull and lifting lugs after meeting design constraints imposed by ABS on hull and PVHO for viewports. I found the learning curve for MD somewhat steep. I use MD because I have it. After learning MD, I became quite fond of it. Early on however, I was quite frustrated with it. If had to start from scratch, I would probably go with AutoCad Inventor as AutoDesk is phasing out MD in favor of Inventor. The advantage I found with staying with AutoDesk suite of programs is that a lot of the equipment vendors use these tools and for many of the off the shelf parts I am using, the vendors had 3-D block diagrams available. The good news is this suite of programs has worked well letting me tinker with hundreds of PSUB designs. ALGOR can be used as either a stand-a-lone program or be launched from within MD. This makes meshing straight forward. The bad news is that MD and ALGOR are rather expensive for a hobby. In the world of FE, ALGOR is on the low end of the cost spectrum.

Cliff

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