[PSUBS-MAILIST] Introducing myself, and a laundry list of questions

[via Personal_Submersibles]

Hello, all,

 

First things first, I'd like to introduce myself. I'm Mikael, a college
student studying mechanical engineering. I've had an interest in building my
own submarine for about 3 years now, after building small ROVs with my
robotics team and competing in the MATE championship. 

 

The sub I want to build is a 1atm submarine that can carry 1-2 people and
dive to about 150-200ft. The main purpose of this would be an engineering
challenge to myself. 

1.	What general advice would you give me to get started? 
2.	How do I do this safely? I think I need to address the elephant in
the room of the recent Titan tragedy - how do I avoid having that happen to
me? There's the obvious, design with plenty of safety factor, build in
redundancy to life support and surfacing systems, etc. What else do I need
to be aware of? In particular, what are the less obvious/more obscure issues
that might crop up?
3.	What skills do I need to pick up before embarking on this project? I
have a little bit of experience with machining, I'd need to get better to
make parts I'd trust with my life. I can only assume I'd need to learn to
weld. Are other skills like SCUBA necessary? Do I need to learn HAM radio
for any communications devices?
4.	Ballpark, how much would this cost to build? To operate? What costs
are involved in the process that I likely wouldn't expect?
5.	How do you source/fabricate your pressure hulls? I've heard of
people using propane tanks, but also that doing so isn't really the
recommended strategy, because detailed information on them is scarce. I have
no idea how else you'd fabricate something like that on a hobbyist budget.
6.	What books/reference material should I pick up? So far I've picked
up Manned Submersibles, Concepts in Submarine Design, as well as the ABS
rulebook and the Design, Construction, and Operating Guidelines from the
PSUBS website. 
7.	What other questions should I be asking? 

 

Thank you very much for any help you can provide! I know that's a lot of
questions.

 

- Mikael

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