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Re: HP, weight and visability

Hi Richard,

>Sounds to me like you have designed a monstrosity,  ballast tanks don't 
>need to be inside the hull, also how do you plan to preform maintaince 
>on the inside of you ballast tanks?????
The idea was to have one of two options:
1) Inner pressure hull with an outer hull(thin one) as the protector. The soft ballast would be located between these with ambient pressure meaning the thinner hull need not withstand pressure.
2) Outer pressure hull with thinner inner hull. The idea of using the space between as ballast was a little more difficult unless I used Ray's idea. 

Maintenance on them is a good question. How do you perform maintenance on yours?


>As a safety shell, the thinner inner hull would be usless at great 
>depth.
If the inner hull were the thin one, it would not be used as a safety shell. It would act as support for the outer.


>I think you have made the design much too complicated you need to see 
>some real manned submersibles to get ideas for your sub.
What I have made complicated is my descriptions of what I want to do. I was also under the impression that in order to be certified, a sub must have an inner hull that wasn't made of fiberglass. Am I wrong?

>Military subs 
>have different design requirements than manned submersibles and you 
>should steer away using military sub ideas, which don't work well for 
>small manned submersibles.
I wasn't intentionally using the military standards. I was using the requirement of an inner hull.

>The Ballast tanks on my two-man dry submersible, which has a 
>1000'operating depth and is rated A1 Manned Submersible by the ABS, are 
>for and aft external to the pressure hull, and independantly valved.  My 
>ballast are only 3/16" thick and work just fine.
Is there an inner hull? If so, what is it made of? My main ballast tanks are external. I was simply trying to make the best of the two hull requirement. Are your ballast tanks reinforced? What size are they? Did you design it and build it yourself or did you purchase it? What type of thrusters and how big are they? What is the thickness of your main hull? Any idea where the acrylic came from on your sub?

>Richard Hess

Thanks Richard. I would be very interested in knowing any information you could give me about your sub. Where are you in the country?
Talk to you soon,
Sean