[PSUBS-MAILIST] Concrete hull submarine
Marc de Piolenc via Personal_Submersibles
personal_submersibles at psubs.org
Sun Jun 25 21:21:38 EDT 2023
How was the crush depth calculated?
Marc de Piolenc
On 6/26/2023 3:01 AM, irox via Personal_Submersibles wrote:
>
> Hi Alec,
>
> Yes, that's pretty much it. Wilfried Ellmer is the person who built
> the Swiss sub and started the one in Columbia.
>
> Short version:
>
> The construction phase was plagued with delays, including the shipyard
> we'd rented space from going bankrupt (twice), and one time all the
> managers were arrested and led off the site in handcuffs. Each delay
> added months, sometimes this would use up the dry part of year
> delaying work until next year. Eventually the launch permit expired,
> also the local administrator positions were rotated (every 4 years)
> and the incoming administrator were not happy to hear about a
> submarine being built in their jurisdiction. Ultimately they refused
> to reissue the launch permit and asked for a large sum of money each
> month for 'inspections' with the vague chance they would issue a
> launch permit later. Work on the project stopped here.
>
> Shortly after that the shipyard was sold to a energy company to be
> used as their private ship chandlers. There was a free-n-clear clause
> in the sale and the concrete submarine, now sitting right at the
> water's edge waiting to be launched, would cause problems and
> potentially trigger a lawsuit. In the end I denied ownership of the
> sub, based on it never officially being delivered. The sub sat in the
> shipyard for 10+ years after that. I would periodically check on it
> using Google maps satellite view. Most recently the sub was replaced
> by a pile of rubble, so I assume it had been destroyed.
>
> A few notes on the sub (from memory, so numbers might be off):
>
> Hull: Teardrop
>
> Construction: Slip cast reinforced concrete
>
> Length: 19meters
>
> Width: 4.5meters
>
> Operational depth: 300meters
>
> Crush depth: 2800meters
>
> Crew: 4
>
> Operational dive time: 1 week
>
> Emergency life support: 3 weeks
>
> Viewports: 1 bow dome, 8 small "sky-light" viewports.
>
> ROV lockout chamber.
>
> Surface propulsion: Diesel engine
>
> Submerged propulsion: Electric
>
> Surface range: 2500 miles (not sure if that would end up being realistic)
>
> Submerged range: 50 miles
>
> ABS (and offshore concrete structure rules) was to be followed as much
> as possible, which did cause some disagreement...
>
> Ultimately I knew this project contained risk, and at the time I was
> able to accept that risk.
>
> I would consider doing this again, but in the USA, and with an
> improved design which should be more conducive to following ABS.
> Ideally this would be done in away so hulls could be cheaply
> manufactured for destructive testing.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Ian.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Personal Submersibles General Discussion
> <personal_submersibles at psubs.org>
> Sent: Jun 25, 2023 8:08 AM
> To: Personal Submersibles General Discussion
> <personal_submersibles at psubs.org>
> Subject: Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] Titan submersible missing at Titanic site
>
> There's an interesting story about cement subs, which I will tell to
> the best of my recollection. In the early years we had a PSUBS member
> whose name I forget, I believe Swiss or Austrian, who had built a
> ferrocement sub that he kept at a mooring in a Swiss lake. The sub was
> successful, he dived it for years. But eventually he moved to Colombia
> due to marriage, and scuttled the sub in the lake, because the road he
> had used to take it there had been re-routed or modified somehow,
> leaving him without any way of getting it out. The sub became an
> attraction for local SCUBA divers.
> The second part of the story is that another PSUBS member, Ian
> Roxborough, hired the first guy to build him a large cement sub with
> the intention of making it an ocean going live-aboard. The project was
> done completely on the level, with notification to authorities and in
> a major port. This was no drug sub built in the jungle. It got to the
> point where the hull was complete, and I think they were about for the
> first launch. However, Colombia being plagued by drug subs, the
> authorities would not sign off on final paperwork or something (can't
> remember the exact glitch.) Ian had sunk a ton of funds into it, and
> the sub was probably perfectly good, but approval never came. I'm not
> sure what happened to the sub. But Ian is still very much active, so
> maybe can tell us. I'm not sure if he's on the email list. If you are,
> Ian, sorry for bringing up this rather painful memory!
> Best,
> Alec
>
> On Sun, Jun 25, 2023 at 8:35 AM Marc de Piolenc via
> Personal_Submersibles <personal_submersibles at psubs.org> wrote:
>
> That's it. I lost interest when I realized he had built a
> superstructure on a conventional pressure hull.
>
> Very sorry to hear about Brian Cox.
>
> Marc
>
> On 6/25/2023 6:11 PM, Jon Wallace via Personal_Submersibles wrote:
>
> Marc, that was probably Brian Cox who passed away a year or so
> ago. His pressure hull was steel but he did use ferrocement
> for the superstructure.
> http://www.subdb.info/cgi/database/showvessel/index.cgi?ID=1272980224&VN=Esmae&VT=1
> <http://www.subdb.info/cgi/database/showvessel/index.cgi?ID=1272980224&VN=Esmae&VT=1>
> There are no standards for using ferrocement as a manned
> submarine pressure hull and I think anyone attempting it would
> find little support for the project given the Ocean Gate loss.
> Jon
> On Sunday, June 25, 2023 at 04:09:00 AM EDT, Marc de Piolenc
> via Personal_Submersibles <personal_submersibles at psubs.org>
> <mailto:personal_submersibles at psubs.org> wrote:
> I know. I fell in love with FC for yachts, which made me
> wonder how
> useful it would be for pressure hulls... Turns out there is a
> 2010
> exchange of messages in my archive with somebody on this list
> who built
> in FC, Brian Cox. Is he still there?
>
> Marc
>
> On 6/24/2023 8:27 PM, Bernie Hellstrom via
> Personal_Submersibles wrote:
> > Many boat hulls were made with FC. Even the landing barges
> in the ww2 , to make piers to in load ships!
> >
> > Sent from my iPhone
> >
>
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