[PSUBS-MAILIST] Concrete hull submarine

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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