Cousteau Saucer and magnet drives Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] FWIW: Don't know if you remember me....

[MerlinSub@t-online.de (Carsten Standfuß)]

> From: "Richard Gordon" <lrrg@wantree.com.au>
> Hi guys,
>             Richard Macrae Gordon here again. I wrote to you guys
> quite a while
> ago to get a bit more info about hull design and other things related
> to PSUB
> construction (a life-long interest of mine).
> 
> I have some quite interesting things to tell you all. Firstly, I think
> I may
> have come up with a layout of electrodes and magnets that can quite
> efficiently
> produce thrust in sea-water with no moving parts. I have constructed a
> crude
> model to test this principle, and IT WORKED! Some of you may be
> familiar with
> the Japanese designed Yamato1 that undrwent sea trials in the early
> 90's. This
> had a magnetohydrodynamic propulsion sytem of this type, but because
> of it's
> specific layout, it required superconducting magnets to make it work.
> These
> things require a cryogenic cooling system that is both expensive and
> bulky. My
> design should eliminate the need for such powerful magnets.

Yamato 1 : Yery nice shaped ship - 
looks like a space shuttle ship from Deep star six..

The technical sheet was : 
Hull type semi-trimaran made from aluminium with 30 m length , 
10 m beam and 2,69 m draft. Displacement of 185 t. 

"Runs" 8 knots powered by two MTU high power diesel which produce
4000 amps AC which is converted to DC. 
The superconducting coils were cooled by liquid helium at -269 C°
With onshore supplyed cooled magnets the magnets produce 
a force of 3,5 t in the centre of the magnets. 

> 
> With magnets not much stronger than fridge magnets and an input
> voltage of only
> 6 volts, I produced a visible flow of sea-water in my test-tank. I am
> currently
> scraping together resources to construct a higher power version that
> will
> hopefully produce a more appreciable amount of thrust. When this is
> done and I
> am satisfied with the results, I will be looking for a corporate
> sponsor to
> offer resources for the development of this idea. Any advice in this
> area would
> be greatly appreciated!!!
> 
I would like to hear more about that - how much thrust ? 
Do you have a drawing or a picture ?


> My second point, though greatly less interesting, is that I have
> available some
> photos of a small working model sub that I built when I was 15 (it was
> 6 years
> ago, but still a fonde memory). It is about 3' 6" long and about 6" in
> diameter
> (being an Australian versed in the metric system, it's a bit tricky
> converting
> to imperial measurements!!!). It achieved a less than overwhelming top
> speed of
> around 2 miles per hour. I had a lot of fun building it and won the
> science-fair!! Say the word and I'll email those photos right over to
> you.
> 
> My last point is a question. Could anyone please tell me a little more
> about
> Jaques Cousteau's Diving Saucer. I have searched the net, but couldn't
> find
> anything about it. If anyone in the world would know the details of
> it, it would
> be a member of PSUBS!

The Diving Saucer was owned by OFRS - J.Y.Cousteau and build 
by Westinghouse in 1959. The operating deep was 1000 feet. 
The speed was about 1 knot with a endurance of 4 hours. 
It has 1-2 hp motor driving centrifugal water pump, 2 jets provide
thrust, 
The battery was 3 x 104 amp/hr lead acid batteries, 
The length was 9,5 feet the beam also, The heigh was 5,5 feet and the 
weight about 8500 lbs (other source told 3,5 t). Manipulator, 
Crew was 2 in prone position and normal live Support was 4 hours whith
a maximum of 24 hours. The payload was 100 pound (other source 135 kg). 
The pressure hull was 0,75 in.(19 mm) thick mild steel ellipsoidal.
6,5 ft (major diameter and 4,9 ft. min d., 3 windows of 120 mm diameter. 
The maneuvering control was taken by rotarable jets, 2-55 lb wgts.for
ascent
and descent, fine bouancy control by internal ballast tank (55 l), 
mercury trim system. The emergency features was 300 lb releasable
mercury plus 400 lb 
releasble emergency wgt. A inflatable conning tower for surface
freeboard. 
The maneuvering was very good the maximum speed was very low. 
The boat has some other names like : 
SP300 (Denise, DS-2, Diving Saucer, SP350) 
Histrory : First drawings in 1955, First test with the pressure hull
only 
in 1957, during this test the rope breaks and the pressure hull sunk to 
1000 m deep (3280 feet) without damage. First test of the second hull in
1959 
but battery were destroyed two times during tests. Price in 1959 for
SP350 
was 15.000 Dollar. 1970 after some more test the dive deep was increase 
to 350 meter (1148 feet). 
Main Pilot was Albert Falco, first operational trials in 1960,
For this sub a underwater garage was build in the red sea ..
>From 1959 up to 1970 about 750 dives with 2000 dive hours. 
During a night dive it catch a rope near the sea bottom, 
after relasing of 180 kg drop weight its refloat and 
fired night lights - the mother ships found it..

Since about 1967 replaced by two SP500 units. 
Last time I have heard of it in the Museum Maritime
in Monaco - but during my visit in the mid 90ies it was not there. 

A similar simple Psub steel pressure hull could be made from
industrial endcaps for pressure tanks for estimate 2500 - 3000 Dollar. 

Hope helps a little, 

today I ordered the cone shells for the bow and stern section. 
see you Carsten 

> I thank anyone that reads this email for parting with so much of their
> time. Any
> help with any of this stuff would be greatly appreciated. Cheers!
> 
> Best Wishes,
> 
> Richard Macrae Gordon
>