No Subject

["Alan D. Secor" <secor@btv.ibm.com>]

Any pressure penetration through the pressure hull should have a shutoff
valve immediately where it passes through the hull.  If something fails
downstream, it can be shut off at the penetration.  To have a malfunction
down stream and at the shutoff valve at the same time seems highly 
unlikely.
These are the provisions Kitterege make in his subs.
> 
>     My question is "What happens if the O2 valve malfunctions while
> submerged at 50M?" If the O2 tank starts an uncontrolled release of O2 into
> the cabin while submerged...  well...  I think that's probably bad.
> Does anyone know of a device or valve that will "pump" excess cabin pressure
> out into the surrounding atmosphere (water).
> 
My sub has ballast tanks open to the environment.  The goal is to have the
sub neutrally bouyant with all tanks flooded.  Use of motors and or dive 
planes
for ascent/descent.  This way you don't have to constantly fiddle with
ballast pressures based on depth.  It does require fine tuning the sub's
weight with lead prior to the dive based on passengers or payload though.

>     My second question is "Is it OK to have the hard ballast tanks (for
> nuetral bouyancy) open to the environment or must they be a pressure tank?"
> All the reading I've done indicates that they should be a pressure tank but
> I wonder about having them open to the atmosphere. Has anyone made their
> nuetral bouyancy tanks soft (or open to the atmosphere)?
> 
> 
> Thanks everyone!
> Sean
> 
Boy, looks like there was a lot of traffic over the weekend that I'm just
catching up on!!!

Al
 

--
Alan D. Secor
e-mail: secor@btv.ibm.com