Bathyscaphe

The word bathyscaphe or bathyscaphe for deep-sea submarine was coined by Auguste Piccard. He used the Greek words bathos ( "depth" ) and skaphos ( "ship" ). The term is in contrast to Mesoskaph.

Technique of Bathyscaphen

The flameproof submersible ball for the crew is attached to the lifting body. Apart from the diving bell may be present when diving air-filled cavities. Therefore, the float is filled with a liquid having a lower density than water. Most gasoline is used to. Liquids are hardly compressible and therefore reserve in depth their volume and thus its buoyancy at. Thus, the slight compressibility does not cause deformation of the float, the tanks are designed freiflutend. That is, they are equipped on the bottom with an opening for flooding.

Access to the bathysphere is via a shaft. This is not pressure-resistant and is therefore flooded during the dive. At the bottom of the submarine gripper, lamps, cameras and other equipment in the field of view of the crew are attached.

The up and down movement is controlled by the ballast.

Therefore, the control is similar to a balloon.

A special form of the ballast is in a long, heavy chain. As long as the chain hangs freely in the water, it contributes to the overall weight of the bathyscaphs. Once it impinges on the sea floor, the total weight of the bathyscaphs reduced by the weight of the chain links lying on the ground. The further decrease of the Bathyscaph, the lower is the effective weight: The sinking is first slowed down and eventually stopped. This is an important safety element: such a impacting on the seabed is automatically prevented. In addition, the chain acts as a drag anchor.

The iron shot ballast is located in ballast silos and is held there by electromagnetically -closing slide. For appearance, the electromagnets are switched off, thereby opening up the slider automatically or by spring force and the ballast falls down. This fail- safe principle is for safety: When a power failure or defect in the system of the bathyscaphe dive automatically. The batteries are located under ambient pressure. Therefore, they may not contain air-filled cavities.

As a further safety measure, additional ballast may be carried, which is thrown off in an emergency. The buoyancy body can comprise further tanks, which are pumped to the surface and is filled with air in order to improve the floatability of the surface.

The bathyscaphe is an evolution of the diving bell on rope ( Bathysphere ): he can much more independent than a Batyhsphäre by the independent buoyancy and by electrically driven propeller operate. Compared to a submarine, the mobility of the bathyscaphs is limited, but it may penetrate much deeper. A military submarine reaches about 600 meters depth, the depth record of bathyscaphs Trieste is over 10,910 meters.

Due to the low maneuverability bathyscaphe rely on support from a mother ship. They are either dragged into the target area or onboard or left at the destination to water. The filling with fluid buoyancy and iron ballast is usually only on site.

History

The concept of the bathyscaphe was developed by the Swiss physicist Auguste Piccard during the 1930s. Piccard had previously invented a pressure capsule with which he under a balloon ascent in 1931 to 15,785 meters in height and with a balloon penetrated even at 16,940 feet on August 18, 1932 in the stratosphere. The pressure capsule and the balloon were named after the promotional Belgian company, FNRS - 1 to the " Fonds National de la Recherche Scientifique ". By applying the principle of stratospheric balloons in the depths of the ocean, the bathyscaphe, the FNRS -2, which was built from 1946 and 1948 was tested.

In 1953 he first came up with a bathyscaphe, the Trieste, a further development of the precursor FNRS -2, off the Mediterranean island of Ponza to a depth of 3150 meters down; the dive boat stopped doing a water pressure of up to 420 bar stand, which is about 400 times the air pressure. Another depth record, the French bathyscaphe FNRS -3 in February 1954 and reached near Dakar 4050 m, the Trieste in 1959 in the Pacific exceeded. On January 23, 1960, the Trieste finally emerged by 2012 ( Deepsea Challenger) valid record depth of 10,740 or 10,916 depending on the measurement meters, at a point at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, the Challenger Deep, down. Here, the deep-sea submersible resisted a pressure of 1170 bar, 1155 times the average air pressure at sea level.

After this record runs the then Bathyscaphen conducted primarily scientific expeditions to explore the seabed and deeper water layers. In addition, such vehicles were always involved in the search for sunken submarines, the first time in 1963, when the Trieste examined the wreckage of the U.S. nuclear submarine USS Thresher. The French Archimede was used in 1968 and 1970 to search for the sunken submarines in the Mediterranean '' Eurydice '' and'' Minerve '' (both units of the Daphne class). 1970 led this vehicle even by a recovery of the damaged unmanned submersible Cyana by was separated by a manipulator of the emergency ballast. Until 1980, all Bathyscaphen were taken out of service, the last Trieste II

View

In comparison to the offshore work boats and upsetting the research submersible Alvin boats such as the pure Bathyscaphen are rather immobile and thus limiting its usability. In addition, their construction is relatively sensitive and their use is costly. Their advantage lies in the large reachable depth, the greatest ever. Indeed, the accessibility of such depths that occur only in deep-sea trenches usually proved for normal science operations as unnecessary.

On March 26, 2012 James Cameron reached his boat Deepsea Challenger alone, as the third man in total the bottom of the Challengertiefs in the Mariana Trench. Here found the structural features of the Bathyscaphen so far no strict use more, as was used in place of gasoline specialized and compact material for the float.

More recent considerations go cover the research objectives in greater depth in future with unmanned submersible robots (Remotely Operated Vehicle, ROV ) or dynamic diving, small- submersibles. The projects are not yet sufficiently advanced for consideration, but appear at least in principle possible, the Japanese ROV Kaiko reached in 1995 the previously dived only by the Trieste bottom of the Mariana Trench. Research goals in less depth can with the imaginary for that depth, in the meantime built research and work upsetting boats are operated. As far as known, all previously built Bathyscaphen are already decommissioned.

Variously found technology from research to Bathyscaphen input in the construction of advanced submersibles. For example, using all the modern deep-sea submarines, starting with Alvin and the Canadian Pisces series, spherical pressure hull, which - applied for the first time as the Archimede - are in a streamlined and unpressurized fuselage. Other designs such as the American submarine Aluminaut, which threw ballast in the form of a lead keel to the emergence, had no lasting effect.

Known Bathyscaphen

Apart from the FNRS 2, the pressure hull was further used in the FNRS 3, all bathyscaphe above have been preserved as museum pieces today. Here, the FNRS 3 is a monument in the naval arsenal of Toulon, the Trieste in the United States Navy Museum in Washington, DC, the Archimede in the museum La cité de la Mer in Cherbourg and the Trieste II in the Naval Undersea Museum in Keyport, Washington. In addition, there is a sample cast of the pressure hull of Trieste in the Deutsches Museum in Munich.

Even in the Soviet Union had plans for the construction of Bathyscaphen. The various developed by OKB Giprorybflot in Leningrad designs with the designations B-5, B -11 and DSB -11 had streamlined buoyancy in the way of FNRS -3; the depths were designed for a maximum of 5000-12000 m. However, these designs were not implemented.