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Hey Glen, Sounds like we are on the same chapter. I've been working on designs for collapsible MBT's for a couple of years now. It started out with a need to conceal inflatable saddle tanks under spring loaded side panels that would simply open when the saddle tanks were inflated. Now I working on the design for my KLH-500 inflatable amas to collapse into the narrow aluminum standing deck that runs above them. The design currently has a aluminum or UHMW cover panel that mirrors the profile shape of the said ama decks, and is attached to those said decks with a UHMW spring loaded hinge means, that is attached to the inboard side of said decks. There is then a number of nylon, seat belt type bands, that go around the inflatable amas and feed into a spring loaded spool. This way as the amas are deflated with either just opening up the valves with a light spring loaded check valve on it and letting the air out of the MBT's as you would for a normal dive, a mini cordless wet dry shop vac, or a pneumatic powered vacuum generator, the lower cover panel will just close up below said upper deck and hold in the inflatable ama. The other issue I'm currently working on, is that I might need to move the amas out further from the hull then I had first planned. To allow more room between the amas and the hull for the side thrusters water flow when they are operating in a vertical fashion. This might very well put me to wide to trailer the sub, unless I make the be able to hinge up of down towards the subs axis. I also may wish for them to hinge down to make the sub have more freeboard for easier launching and recovery by a more standard trailer. Having a floating trailer, configured as I've spoke of in the past would take care of the latter issue. SEAmagine has being using the inflatable amas configuration for some time now with great success.
On a side note many of the SEAmagine acrylic pressure hulls have a FOS of 7. Regards, Szybowski From: glenbrown@vodamail.co.za To: personal_submersibles@psubs.org Subject: Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] Mussels Date: Tue, 25 Aug 2009 20:23:13 +0300 Brent remember you were playing with the idea of
inflatable mbt's have you ever thought of a square instead of round shape with a
inflatable bladder connected to a plastic flat base plate running the length of
the mbt's with stainless steel springs that are connected to the bottom of
the plate that once the purge valve of the bladder is opened the force of
the springs will collapse the bladder on surfacing will be inflated by closing
purge and open compressed air valve which is on the same line could be more
rectangular shape to shorten springs any comments welcome
Glensa
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