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Hi Jon. Thanks for the clarification and also the hard work in making this
whole thing more understandable.
My hope is to get an "operating depth" of about 300 feet with a big safety
factor so I won't take the sub in any water deeper than 600 feet. This covers
the bulk of continental shelf areas not counting trenches and/or canyons, etc. I
expect to realistically stay around 150 feet most of the time but would like to
reach the 300 foot level occasionally. This means a "crush depth" of 1200 feet
would be the goal. That is..... double the maximum depth the sub could ever
get to.
On the ring versus pad reinforcement, it could be possible to lay down weld
beads around the nozzle so as to "build-up" the hull area around the openings.
This of course would mean putting a LOT of heat into the area so some serious
bracing would be required to maintain the geometry of the hull and ring.
A MIG type weld machine can do this type of work fairly quickly as long as
the welder had a good understanding of how the process affected the weld zone
and proper pre-heat and cool-down procedures were used. It would be fairly
simple to take the 1/2 inch hull and build it up to 1 inch thickness at
around 3 inches past the nozzle area. A stress relieving treatment after
finishing would be ideal to make the whole assembly a monolithic steel assembly.
Once the work was done and the stress relief process completed, all the braces
could be removed. There are a couple of ovens in my area that can put something
as large as my hull into the oven and I will investigate the whole thing when I
move back here. Looking at about two years in Florida.
I checked out "hot dipping" in ZINC and there's a place near
here that can do that too. I was surprised at the relatively low cost of having
this done. I didn't get a real quote from the guys over there but the rep
said a "ball park" figure would be under $1,000.
If I build another one I think I'll just start with a stainless hull but
for now this little boat has been a great learning experience, relatively cheap,
and along with you and the other guys in the club, a lot of fun working
through all the design and building processes.
Thanks a lot. see you soon.
Frank D.
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