|
Reading the psubs posts about variable ballast calculations made me
think of the things below.
Why variable ballasting made me think about them will become
clear towards the end of this post,
but enjoy the links at the beginning of my below post first, then you will
see the connection.
Four confederate submarines like the Hunley are
buried in earth that once was covered by a river in Lousiana. A situation
similiar to the recovery site of the steamboat
"The Arabia" in that the river changed its course
from where the confederates
scuttled the subs to prevent Union capture. The
four confederate subs are there to this day waiting for someone to dig them
up
on DRY land! Check it out at this below
link.
FIVE CONFEDERATE SUBMARINES AT
BUILT AT SHREVEPORT
A while back I wrote a section/link there
called... " How
did the Hunley's ballast tanks work and how did she
submerge?"
and was answered by this section
link.... Michael Crisafulli ANSWERS who
is a conservator archaeologist
currently working on the Hunley. Mr.
Crisafulli supported my hypothesis that the Hunley was (TECHNICALLY)
ambient WHEN
her ballast tank inlet valves were OPEN and water was filling her open to the hull
interior tanks compressing her atmosphere.
Then when the ballast tank valves were closed and AFTER the water was pumped out of the tanks, she
became a 1 atm sub again.
It appears my claimed theory that the Hunley was a hybrid of both systems is likely
correct according to a conservator of the Hunley.
I may be a "Hunley Bunley" (whatever that is! Lol)
but my theories were vindicated. It appears
I wasn't a "candle waster" after all for
defending my theories to critics who claimed the
Hunley was ONLY a 1 atm sub and NEVER ambient. Perhaps who called me
that
might burn a few more candles of their own in
studying next time before they cast dispersions. The Hunley conservator agreed with me,
even though he said it was TECHNICALLY ambient
because of the smallness of the ballast tanks. Technically or not, Hunley
was both ambient AND 1 atm.
A hybrid like I thought. He also agreed I may very
well be correct that the Hunley was ALWAYS just slightly buoyant and that she
may have pushed herself
underwater with her forward motion and dive planes
and then when the water pressure was greater than the trapped interior
atmosphere, her ballast tanks would
begin filling when their valves were opened.
Similiar to the Holland sub which was previously thought to be the U.S. Navy's
first sub until the existance of the
Alligator was discovered, wherein the Holland was
ALWAYS slightly buoyant and kept under only by her forward motion and dive
planes.
Here's the site's homepage main link
below.
Seeing that the Hunley's internal and
open to the hull interior ballast tanks were very likely a hybrid
ambient/1atm, I thought it might be usefull for some of our members who want
to
construct their own small ambient subs to consider
this... Imagine utilizing a system wherein your sub was ambient when the open to
the interior ballast tanks
were filling, which compresses the air INSIDE the sub and you could pump the water back out WITHOUT
having to have ANY compressed air
to do so. That would save space and weight since
you would not need compressed air to blow your ballast tanks. Then you could
close off the
ballast tank inlet valves to keep any more water
from coming in once you were neutrally buoyant underwater. The beauty of this
hybrid system would
be that although your sub would TECHNICALLY be
ambient when the valves were open and the water was compressing the interior
atmosphere, it would
not compress it very much if you made the sub heavy
enough so that the ballast tanks did not have to be large. Also the small,
technically ambient, compressed hull
atmosphere, would not be much of a
concern for human body decompression at all even with the tanks completely full,
and then you would close off the valves to prevent
further water filling the tanks and you could even
go deeper (if your hull was strong enough and by forcing the sub
deeper with your dive planes) without having to have your atmosphere
further compressed
because you closed off the ballast tanks water inlet valves. So although your interior atmosphere
was now compressed a small amount, you would not further compress your
atmosphere
by going deeper. If you went deeper you would of
course have to have attributes of a pressure hull. Remember however; you would
have a small amount of pressurized atmosphere
inside the hull pushing outward a little which
would help you some against the outside water pressure before your hull
started to have pressure exerted against it from the outside.
This might be a good idea for a design that allowed
you to go a little bit deeper than most ambient subs (because of no
decompression limits) but still staying shallower than most 1 atm subs. Do
you see what I mean here?
I mean you could go deeper than a typical ambient
because you can CLOSE OFF the compression of the interior atmospere so
your body wouldn't be under much compression like in a typical
ambient
and therefore you could go deeper than normal no
decompression scuba depths dive tables allow in a TYPICAL ambient
sub.
This hybrid system is something that no one here at Psubs has ever built (or even discussed
building) to my knowledge. With modern technology and construction and with more
safeguards built in than the Hunley
had, this ambient/1atm hybrid system has real
possibilities. After I finish my wetsub project and IF (BIG "IF" here) I ever
build an ambient I might build consider building a hybrid design like this
myself.
Who know? Maybe I could make it look like a mini
Hunley. But I'd want a bit higher hatch tower. Too easy to be swamped otherwise.
AND I'd want the interior ballast tanks to not have open tops that
could
spill into the hull interior, but instead have the
tank tops closed but with a valve on their tops that would allow the water
pressure to pressurize the interior air. That way I could close off the valves
on the tank tops
and never have to worry about the tanks spilling
into the interior. The most they could do would be to squirt out the valve tops
until I could close them if I forgot to close them to begin with. Much safer
than total open
top ballast tanks open to the hull interior, but
still allows the atmosphere to be compressed.
Bill.
|