Frank,
This is a bit hard to visualize, we need some reference (pics). Also, I for one am hard pressed, to comment specifically to the saucer design, have not seen much in the way of reference material. Not to say that it does not exist, I would love to take a peek at the tech aspects of the Cousteau units.
Joe
From: ShellyDalg@aol.com
Reply-To: personal_submersibles@psubs.org
To: personal_submersibles@psubs.org
Subject: Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] X Thruster Arrangement
Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2007 00:26:32 EDT
Nice drawings Brent. I've seen quite a few subs with the side thrust set-up where the motor is mounted in a tube perpendicular to the hull, and I assume that the motors are reversible.I don't know if the doors are needed to close the opening, as it seems like that would only add more complexity to the side thrust mechanism. Would the open tube cause a lot of extra drag ?My plan is to use two motors that can rotate from horizontal to vertical while the motors are reversible.I haven't spent enough time investigating just what will position the motor mount yet, ( still welding the hull together ) but I am leaning toward a hydraulic or pneumatic piston acting against a spring. If the piston/positioner fails, the spring will return it to vertical so I can power up to the surface.I did some sketching etc. for a concept and it looks like it will work. The next step will be to make a mock-up and test it to determine what kind of spring, how strong, and how the linkages will work.I also plan to put a small dive plane on each motor mount.Steering will be mostly done by rudders on the two rear motors, with added steering from the side motors.A simple dive plane at the rear working independently from the steering rudders should give me some attitude control while moving.I have a lot of this stuff on paper, but my computer skills are pretty limited. I have the old model I built for flow testing, and will be using it to test the rudders, dive planes, and ballast tank designs before I commit to a final design.Anyway, what I'm getting at here is, the simpler it is, the more reliable it should be, not to mention fab time and ultimately cost savings.It's pretty interesting to see how the model reacts when the water flows and I add things to the outside like ballast tanks and dive planes. Really very much a trial and error thing but small enough to be almost free except for time spent.Keep up the great pictures, some are very inspiring! Frank D.
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