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Hi Paul.
I'd be glad to explain the values for you of
compressing the subs interior atmosphere via the ballast tanks
filling.
If your (AT THE MOMENT, because it becomes 1 atm
again later) ambient tanks were filling without any air loss, that would
compress
the interior atmosphere of your hull if your tanks
were connected to the hull's interior.
The value of that would be that you did not lose
any air and could pump the water back out of the
tanks using inside the hull pumps and then your atmosphere would expand again and be 14.7 psi
and that means you could surface
without having to have air tanks. Which is exactly how the Hunley ballast tanks
worked.
So one value would be you wouldn't need air tanks
to surface with a savings on interior space. NO air tanks needed ever to
blow.
Another value would be that, lets say you were
at 2 atmospheres, or 33 feet, (remember we have 1 atm on us at the surface
already)
and you allowed the incoming pressure of the
ballast tanks filling to compress your internal
atmosphere so the interior and exterior were
equalized at that depth, now lets say you closed
off the water inlet valve at 33 ft, which would
mean you wouldn't pressurize any more when you went deeper,
then that means you could decend another atmosphere
(3 atm now) to 66 feet (by forcing the sub under with the planes) and only have
ONE atmosphere of FELT external pressure
exerted against the outside of the sub even though
you were at 3 atm. Because you already had the interior pressurized to 2 atm
before
you shut off the valve. That means you could design
a hybrid ambient/1atm sub with a hull that could go deeper than a typical
ambient
could safely go because your body has
to follow the "no decompression scuba dive table limits" and in a
typical ambient at 66 ft your
body is under the pressure of 3 atm, whereas in the
way I explained the hybrid above, your body would only be under the pressure
of
2 atm even though your sub was at 3 atm. If
you compressed your interior atmosphere ambiently to 33 ft so now your body
would be under
2 atm, then you close off the valve, but
you dive your sub to 99 ft or 4 atm and the outside water pressure on the sub is
only 2 FELT atm because
the interior is pushing back with 2 atm of its own
against outside water pressure. Not
needing air tanks and your body able to be submerged
deeper and longer than in a normal ambient
sub would be the main valuable benefits and
a third side benefit would also be that your hull would
not have to be anywhere near as strong as a 1
atm hull because you are for a large
part using it as an ambient hull which requires little strength and
thickness and you could submerge to deeper
atmospheres with less FELT water
pressure pressing against the hull because you already had
several atmospheres inside the sub pushing
outward . Do these sound like valuable assets? I think they have possibilities for no
decompression
ambient sub operation at scuba dive table limit
depths.
Recap.....no air tanks needed for ballast tanks,
body can dive deeper and longer than normal ambient sub
and hull doesn't need to be as strong as 1 atm WHEN
USED AT PROPER DEPTHS FOR YOUR DESIGN.
Did that help you Paul?
Bill.
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