Slashdot Mirror
Build Your Own Submarine
Nerobro writes "There's a group of geeks out there who are bound and determined to build their own submarines. In fact, there's a large group who have been successful. The most interesting is Cartsen Standfuss's CSSX-1. There is a mailing list, owners group and sizeable archive of information at psubs.org."
Nerds should have this thing flying, uhh I mean floatin, errr boyancy? through the water.
http://www.hispanicvista.com/html/000908am.html
Nice project. I'd like to see more of the Deep Flight type submersibles though, rather than these ballast-based beasts.
Peter Madsen successfully operated his homegrown 1-man submarine in the harbour of Copenhagen last fall. It has been submerged for 1½ hour, and gone to a depth of 10 m.
That came on the heels of an accident where his submarine was heavily damaged by crashing into a bridge. Don't blame Peter though - it was carried on a truck! (danish)
During the test this fall the only problem was paranoid police boarding the sub (danish) to assure that Peter was not an activist intending to disrupt the EU summit.
Any sufficiently advanced libertarian utopia is indistinguishable from government.
There are two basic design approaches to submarines. Ambient pressure designs and 1 atmosphere designs. They both have advantages and disadvantages and selecting the proper type depends on your criteria. Primarily the deciding criteria is cost and depth:
Ambient
Cost: $1,000 - $20,000
Max Depth: 0-160 feet
1 Atmosphere
Cost: $10,000 - $500,000
Max Depth: 0-1000+ feet
http://www.psubs.org/faq.html
Universities like Virginia Tech have been building these things for years.
If you aren't part of the solution, there is good money to be made prolonging the problem
This isn't so crazy, on the discovery channel or tlc a while back they had a special about a group of people who were recreating one of the early wooden subs that managed to stay submerged for several hours and sink some other ships or something.
IIRC, the group managed to get the thing built right at the deadline, the were racing against the clock for some reason such as the weather or because of their permit or something like that. And they got all the leaks fixed at the last minute or so, but then they discovered that the amount of carbon dioxide from exhaling quickly poisened the air in the ship for the one guy that was rowing.
Submarines will normally have atleast 3 or 4 ways of surfacing. Primary and secondary main balast tanks, either of which could surface the submarine alone, variable balast tank (sometimes using a pump rather than compressed air) and a lead drop weight which can be drop via a lever from inside the sub. They are normally two seperate high pressure air systems as well.
M0571y H@rml355.
That is why all submarines are designed with large safety factors. A submarine with an operational limit of 100 meters will be tested to 300 meter and have calculated crush depth of ~600meters or more.
Viewports are normally the weakest part of a submarines pressure barrier. But they just burst open, they will turn a milky color, the start to star crack, then after about six hour they will burst. OF course you notice the viewport (window) turning a milky color and return to the surface ASAP.
M0571y H@rml355.
Read The American Bureau of Shipping's: Rules for building and classiing underwater vehicles, systems and hyperbaric facilities. OR Busby's Manned Submersibles for more information.
To pressurize a sub to match water pressure with air would be extremely dangerous if done in a hurry and the air would become poisonous; to breathe under pressure at depth (Deephabs) you have to be slowly pressurised with exotic gases. Note that regular submarines only increase pressure a little when submerged.
There is no way you are going to beable to open the hatch if the outside pressure is greater than the internal pressure. Flooding the sub is diffinately an option, but depending on the sub, this can take time (most people put large enough bailout valves to do this in a reasonable amount of time), also if you sub is damaged or disabled you might not beable to flood it. Even with the sub flooded, you still want a small bubble of air to work in while you release the hatch (although you can use scuba gear, but the bends might be more of an issue).
Some psubs allow you to flood them so you can go for a swim and then return.
Immediately you let go of the sub you find yourself ascending at an incredible rate, gas rushing from your mouth, nose ears and eye sockets and your lungs searing. Finally you arrive at the surface travelling at such a rate that you are thrown several feet in the air. Somehow your lungs/arteries didn't rupture during the ascent but you now die in 20-30seconds from the massive nitrogen boil-off in your veins as you suffer from an incredible case of 'bends'
Yell all the way up. The bends won't normally be a problem since you are not spending enough time under pressure to become saturated (of course, if you had to spend a lot of time trapped in you sub while under pressure this would be an issue).
No two ways about it, submarines are still extremely dangerous.
Hehe, agreed, but everything is dangerous if you are stupid enough.
M0571y H@rml355.
Actually in 688-class and EVERY OTHER SUB I HAVE EVER SEEN, The water is simply allowed in by letting air out through a valve on the topside of the ballast tank. there is an open hole on the bottom side to allow the water in while you bubble the air out. That is also why subs don't do well inverted. If you invert a sub (difficult with ballast and batteries on the bottom), it will never surface again. Can't get the air to stay in ballast that way. I've never heard of your system. Oh, and you can't just dump your screw- that would leave an 18-inch hole in the hull where the propshaft bearing is situated. It just so happens one or more subs sank while in reverse thrust. a retainer of some sort failed and the prop pulled itself out of the boat. Bad. What is your experience with submarines?