The hull of the submarine is composed of a clear plexi-glass screw.
You are the ballast within it on a recumbent bicycle.

Pedal powered submarines. Just slightly buoyant. No Nitrogen narcosis.

I figured out how to steer them internally without rudders or flaps.

...and then figured out how to create permanent oceanic currents.
...and then figured out how to spit the craft through this artificial current over and over again within a rail-gun made of water.

...

Now imagine these craft automated and shrunk for the service inspection industry where any pipe they fit into they can back out of.

Shrunken farther, they are delivering targeted treatments throughout a human's circulatory system and perform micro-surgeries.

On a large scale they are delivering goods from continent to continent under polar ice linked together like train cars.
Line of sight delivery. No piracy. No storms. Minimal crew. Guaranteed delivery times.

Guess what the downside is...
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Aug 15 2024

Saser https://en.wikipedi...ission_of_radiation
[2 fries shy of a happy meal, Aug 16 2024]

Artifical current https://www.google....id:MS5uKv0q-WM,st:0
[2 fries shy of a happy meal, Aug 16 2024]

I dare you.
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Aug 15 2024


About one metre, by the sound of it.
-- pertinax, Aug 15 2024


Is it that an Archimedean screw is a terribly inefficient type of propeller?
-- bhumphrys, Aug 15 2024


A cylindrical object rotating on it's long horizontal axis does not have a top / up side, or a bottom / down side, because (a) it does not have discrete sides, but a continuously curved outer surface, and (2) that surface is continuously rotating to bring whatever part of it is currently at the bottom up and around to the top. Hence there is no downside.
-- pocmloc, Aug 15 2024


//Is it that an Archimedean screw is a terribly inefficient type of propeller?//

No. it's terribly inefficient as a propeller, pump OR turbine. They still have some use lifting fluids that aren't liquids, powders etc. and they're quite good at mixed fluids, slurries/concrete or what have you. But you'll always be in trouble sealing such a long sliding surface efficiently.
-- bs0u0155, Aug 15 2024


None of those things are problems.
When an Archimedes Screw is neutrally buoyant and rotates within a liquid then it becomes an impeller and the professor of mechanical engineering who 3d printed me a hull said he expected efficiency in the high 90% range as there would be no cavitation if its speed was increased on an incremental gradient.
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Aug 15 2024


I figured out how to attain aircraft speeds underwater without using super-cavitation, unlike the torpedoes or aircraft you're going to have a difficult time finding any record of.
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Aug 16 2024


Questions about that, or just more degradation?
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Aug 16 2024


I'm curious about the permanent oceanic currents you intend to create.
-- pertinax, Aug 16 2024


I've just got this vision of me spinning round and round inside, the opposite direction to the sub. Where could I put my cup of tea down that would be safe?
-- bhumphrys, Aug 16 2024


Yes, so I devised a rubber coated flywheel on a swing arm which would not allow the pilot to invert within the hull. This led to the gyroscopic torque precession steering mechanism.

//I'm curious about the permanent oceanic currents you intend to create.//

The naval research lab sponsoring the pedal powered submarine competition wants flooded subs to move divers around quickly in their gear and part of their rules is the elimination of exhaled gas within the sub so as not to cause positive buoyancy.
I was playing around with various methods when it dawned on me that shunting the air to the open front nose of the craft behind a membrane would not cause an upward tilt but a sideways yaw because of the hull itself being a gyroscope. I could compensate for this yaw with the internal gyroscope.
The spin of the hull would cause the entering gas to tornado and when enough had been collected a single blow to the membrane would launch a tornado vortex ring in front of the craft.

There is a 100 meter warm up area before the starting line and, by storing energy in the flywheel to slow the craft before then, several of these vortex rings could be launched.

There is an invention called a Saser, (sound laser) [link], which makes sound coherent enough that if three men stand shoulder to shoulder only the middle man can hear the sound and only in one ear.
If this sound is projected at a vortex ring it will do two things. It will lock that vortex ring into position and, due to the change of the speed of sound in water compared to air, it will impart more energy to the centre of the ring and speed it up.
Wave powered buoys will power the sonic emitters and create a tunnel of vortex rings.
Anything neutrally buoyant will follow the current they create.

Here's a video of Dyson fans creating a current in a warehouse. [link]

If this current is already in place then pedal powered speed now becomes motorized vehicle speed.
If the sub can create its own vortex ring then it can be timed to launch one at an upcoming ring to coincide with entering it.
When a faster vortex ring encounters a slower vortex ring in the same direction the two rings violently leapfrog with the faster ring gaining energy from the slower one.
Blue and green heat lasers work well underwater and a variable lens would allow for the gas in these two rings to be excited causing them to grow in size.
If that heat is cut off at just the right time then they will rapidly shrink and if the craft is at the point of leapfrog then it will be spit out like an apple seed between your fingers over and over and over again.

The analogy is that of riding a ten speed bike on the back of an infinitely long flat bed moving truck, while also on a moving highway.
You're still only doing bicycle speeds but only relative to the artificial current.
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Aug 16 2024


Then [+], because the wheel is rubber-coated.
-- bhumphrys, Aug 16 2024


Thank you. I'll have to be quiet for a long time while thinking through all that.
-- pertinax, Aug 17 2024


While you're at it I think the same principal works with electro-magnetism but I don't have enough knowledge of the subject to make the leap.

Cheers.
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Aug 17 2024


(marked-for-tagline)

"None of those things are problems"
-- normzone, Aug 17 2024


A "Saser" works in the Giga- to Tera-Hertz range, & would probably (I couldn't dig up specifics) have a range of millimetres if you're lucky.
What you want is an LRAD directional speaker, which would possibly be even MORE effective in water than in air.
-- neutrinos_shadow, Aug 19 2024


Very cool.

I can only intuit to the extent at which I've been informed.
My information has been minimal.

You get it though right? We can create trans-oceanic currents and then tweak them for efficiency.

The unintended,(and yet totally cool) aspect of this is that any port wishing to create one of these artificial currents will first have to deal with a way to dispose of any positively buoyant garbage washing up on the shores it came from due to the surface back eddy created by the artificial current.

...

It's gonna be whole thing. You'll love it.
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Aug 19 2024


I'll be dead by then...

...but it's gonna be freakin awsome!
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Aug 19 2024



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