I was reading about the submarine HMS Astute the other day, and somewhere I came across a line that said that in order to be able to withstand the pressure during deep dives, the cross section of the hull needs to be a perfect circle. Well, perfect is something you only get in theory, in practice you can come close, but you are never going to be perfect. So, just how perfect does it need to be? Pretty darn close: a flat spot that deviates from a perfect circle by one inch will cause a 30% loss in strength. We are talking about a seven inch thick steel plate bent in a circle 37 feet in diameter. That's going to be a bit of a trick. No wonder submarines are so expensive.
Pont du Gard Roman aqueduct near Nimes in France |
Concrete Submarine |
Why does the Navy persist in building submarines out of the wrong material? Possibly because they resist explosives, as in depth charges, better. Or maybe just no one has ever built a big submarine out of concrete and no one wants to try it. You know the first reaction some people have when they hear the words "concrete" and "submarine" together is that's a really great idea, it will go straight to the bottom and stay there, and then they laugh. But steel by itself doesn't float any better. Maybe it's just that that's what the Mafia uses. I mean, who ever heard of steel overshoes?
Update October 2016 replaced missing picture, fixed by HTML, which meant replacing more pictures.
good article! the name of the engineer is Wilfried Ellmer. i worked with him, he is a genius!
ReplyDeleteHi matias
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