Concepts in Focus – Trio Alpha and Duo Beta Personal Submersibles

! TFTS EXCLUSIVE !

By way of introduction to this new category, as regular readers of Thoughts from the Sidelines will know we have a great deal of time for concepts as they offer a tantalising insight as to what our future may hold as envisaged by those who are ultimately shaping the world around us.

One could argue that concepts are, on a base level, mere flights of fancy that result in little more than glossy renderings that offer little in the way of credibility but, in the vast majority of cases nothing could be further from the truth as, behind the imagery invariably lays a considerable amount of research, development and feasibility studies and a seemingly endless amount of tweaks and revisions.

Our aim, in this new category, is to offer a deeper insight into some of the concepts that have caught our attention here at TFTS by contacting the designer and asking them to offer a little background into their work and we are overjoyed to start off with a designer by the name of Guillermo Sureda-Burgos whose magnificent submersible concepts have seen us salivating over our keyboards for many an hour.

We would like to extend our sincere thanks to Guillermo for taking his time to talk with TFTS and for providing us with a wealth of exclusive imagery concerning his concept work. (Needless to say that if you are a designer who would like to have your work featured here please feel more than free to contact us via our contact form).

Guillermo Sureda-Burgos’s XS100 Trio Alpha & XS100 Duo Beta Personal Submersible Concepts

XS100 Duo Beta Personal Submersible

As of now there are three concept vehicles; XS100 Trio Alpha, XS100 Duo Beta, and the XS100 Duo Delta. Trio Alpha was the first and although it’s center of flotation, buoyancy, and pressure vessels etc. were all calculated correctly as required to get close to ABS (America Bureau of Shipping) requirements, it was a “rushed” design, and lacks a serious structure, realistic bulkheads, or other finishing details that were included on the Duo Beta.

On Beta’s model even the bolts and the fiberglass resin were taken into account. This is very important in this particular type of submarine, as it dives dynamically, developing negative lift with forward movement. There are no ballast or trim tanks, this simplifies operation dramatically and ensures some safety in the form of an always present positive buoyancy; but requires very careful attention to weight distribution during design.

XS100 Duo Beta Personal Submersible

These machines are designed to operate with exactly the same dry/wet weight on every dive. Included on the spreadsheet is a fixed per passenger weight of 250lbs (97.5 percentile male, and great incentive to loose weight!) plus 20lbs for additional equipment/water/ etc.. To compensating for different passenger & equipment loading, when boarding the sub, each person must be weighted with any extra objects carried; the combined weight must not exceed the 270lbs, if it is less, lead ballast is added to the PVHO (Pressure Vessel for Human Occupancy) until the design weight is reached.

The third model, Delta I am working on my free time(no renderings yet, only screen captures), it is also a 2 person vehicle but it’s shape follows more modern thoughts on hull design, a more efficient structure and power source improvements, this last one possibly the most critical since it is the heaviest component and the fastest changing with new technologies.

Since the original market was luxury yacht owners, I am figuring out ways to reduce weight, and simplify operation as much as possible. For this target sector performance is not as much related to depth or speed as it is to reliability or comfort and of course safety; although the fact that each passenger sits in it’s own Pressure Vessel allows easy reinforcement for grater depth, and more powerful propulsion systems can be added too (Increasing weight and battery consumption too). Similar sized crafts with less attention to hydrodynamics archive 4-6 knots, I have not performed Fluid Dynamics test yet so anything on this regard is just a “guestimate” but maneuverability and speed should be much better for the attention to paid to dynamics alone.

The dead weight of flotation tanks full of water when under way takes toll, but large flotation tanks are needed to achieve one of the toughest ABS requirements for this kind of craft; a freeboard of 35 inches. The best example of the importance of this can be seen on the Subeo’s website images of their Gemini personal sub. If you play close attention you can see a photographs of their craft after the addition of flotation-not ballast tanks to achieve the freeboard necessary for certification, even for a conventional negative buoyancy submarine like theirs, achieving the freeboard must have been very hard and an expensive retro-fit. I placed the flotation tanks inside the hull for performance but on a frontal view you can see how wide the subs are.

Once again we would like to extend our sincere thanks to Guillermo Sureda-Burgos for taking the time offer TFTS readers a great insight into his work and for the imagery provided above which we feature here with permission.

If you are interested in reading more concerning Guillermo Sureda-Burgos’s fabulous personal submersible concepts or you would like to see his entire online portfolio or if you would simply like to make contact with Guillermo, we would urge you to do so by visiting his official website.