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Re: batteries


Hi,

	I have been in regular snail mail coorespondence with George
Kittredge. In one of his letters he stated that so far he has had three
battery explosions in his subs. He has build 41 subs so far and I am not
sure of the number of dives or maitenance performed on thoses subs so it is
hard to come up with any meaningful mean-time-between-failure analysis.

	The point is that even though George has WWII American submarine
experience, has designed serveral models, build 41 subs. He has HAD battery
explosions. 

	One he had personally. He just started a dive and around 20 feet 
deep he when he switched on this rear motor and heard a bang like a 
handgranade. That battery pod flooded and he took a list. He immedieately
aborted the dive. Three of the batteries in that pod had exploded and the
forth one was distroyed.

	So the key points is that no matter how well we design, we can
have a battery explosions. So make sure your deisign:

		Allows you to survive the actual explosion

		Allows come back up to the surface incase your battery pods
		flood

Regards,
Ray