4 ms·
What's the benefit of carbon fiber's strength-to-weight ratio when making a submersible? I guess you can have smaller motors to drive you around on the bottom,
by avisser 3y ago
What's the benefit of carbon fiber's strength-to-weight ratio when making a submersible?
I guess you can have smaller motors to drive you around on the bottom, but the vast majority of the travel is controlled via ballast/buoyancy.
To me, planes and cars have much more obvious gains from lighter materials. Not so much for the sub.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- TazeTSchnitzel 3y agoI'm not sure why I highlighted that because indeed that wouldn't be useful, though as a proxy for density it is (apparently they picked it for its buoyancy).
- 83 3y agoThe submersibles need to be less dense than water on average so they rise when you release ballast. It's always a cost tradeoff - I think Challenger Deep (Cameron's former sub) was steel construction which required a large volume of syntactic foam that can resist high pressures to counteract the weight of the steel. That makes for a much larger vessel. Titan's submersible for exploring the Mariana Trench I believe is largely titanium so much lighter than steel, but at a hugely increased cost.
- kayfox 3y ago> What's the benefit of carbon fiber's strength-to-weight ratio when making a submersible? Not having to bond expensive foam to it to make it buoyant. I also think it may have something to do with the shape of the hull in this case, but I have not seen any commentary on that yet.