Quote:
Originally Posted by aschen
Having no expertise in composites I am still a bit confused why the choice of carbon fiber here. Makes perfect sense if the pressure was internal.
Is light weight really an advantage for the vessel itself or does it just a convenience for handling operations?
Interesting paper 100% on subject, just skimmed but says tube started delaminating at pressure less than predicted by FE computational methods.
https://www.iccm-central.org/Proceedings/ICCM12proceedings/site/papers/pap631.pdf
Stick me in a Inconel, titanium of high grade stainless tube please. Save the composites for planes, bikes, and sportscar theatre |
I think there are 2 reasons for carbon fibre…
1. This appears to have been designed by engineering students as a capstone project. I have been an industry panelist reviewing student Capstone Projects at SAIT since 2004. Without fail, every year, a group of students plans to make their project out of ‘Carbon Fiber, or Titanium, or both. This year was no exception with a group planning to make rear bumpers for comment vehicles out of carbon fibre to save weight…
2. In one of the reports I watched on this (I’ve been infatuated with this story), one of the experts said that making the body out of steel, the thickness and resulting weight made it impossible to achieve neutral buoyancy. I have not done any calcs to verify this.