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Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] FEA of a Basic Flat Acrylic Viewport


Another option that works well on conical windows is NO o-ring. Use vacuum grease to bed the plastic against your reinforcing frame, and then a reasonably hard urethane gasket cut to fit exactly (more or less) between your retaining ring and the window edge and frame. The gasket can be RTV'd, but lightly to seal out low pressure surface type water, and when it's time to work on things, the whole thing comes apart simpler. The Pisces, Aquarius and Leo subs used this scheme, even on the big (1 meter diameer) domes, and it worked just fine. The the port to frame contact area is large, and the window self-seals, getting tighter, obviously, as you go deeper.

On another topic, I wonder if the guys using Minn-Kota 101s could give me some feed-back about how well they work in the water. Do they in fact have enough thrust to shove the better part of two tons around? I'm thinking about retiring Captain George's large and HEAVY 36 volt thrusters and installing three of the Minn-Kotas. It'll give me nearly a hundred pounds of payload back, which I could certainly use.

Thanks,
Vance

-----Original Message-----
From: ShellyDalg@aol.com
To: personal_submersibles@psubs.org
Sent: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 3:41 pm
Subject: Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] FEA of a Basic Flat Acrylic Viewport

I see what you mean Alec. I won't be using an O ring, but it definitely has some advantages. If it proves to be a big enough hassle to bed the plexi in ''pookie'' I'll just have to think of a way to put a groove in the window bases. That sounds like a question for my son-in-law. He's a machinist. I'm guessing the frames and all would have to be fabricated from scratch, and it's too late now, as my rings are in and welded. We'll have to try what we've got, and go from there. Thanks for the info. Frank D.



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