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Sep 21
Today, the team surveyed the information we collected regarding the environment we are going to carry out our operations in and the design of the Alvin. We have found the environment to be a harsh one, with very hot temperatures (over 400 degrees Celsius), extreme pressures, dark and with high concentrations of hydrogen sulphide, an acidic compound, dissolved in the water. This gave us an idea about the measures we should take to protect our vehicle(s) and the crew against such severe conditions. We had a look at the Alvin's user manual to learn more about its systems, so that we can have an idea of what to include in the designs of our vehicles. Although the Alvin is an old vehicle, constant efforts are made to keep it up-to-date. We plan to look at designs of newer vehicles, but we thought the Alvin may be a good start. After studying the manual, we reached the conclusion that we should study the following systems in submarines in further detail.
1. Submarine's shell
2. Power & propulsion systems
3. Life support
4. Navigation & communications systems
5. Scientific equipment and cameras
6. Manipulators
We decided to progress in this study by researching two items prior to each meeting. Each item will be tackled by two team members, and a summary of the research shall be presented in the meetings.
Posted by Waseem Bakr on 09/21/01
(Note: One of the team members dropped the course after this entry was posted and therefore our plan to research the systems in pairs was revised.)
Updated by Waseem Bakr on 10/04/01
Oct 03
The team's agenda was as follows:
First, we decided that we should have a permanent interteam coordinator and webmaster. Kabir was chosen for the first position and I (Waseem) was chosen for the latter.
Next, we went over our mentor's review of our website on 09/29 point by point and tried to answer the questions he raised to help us decide on the goals of our team and the boundaries between our responsibilities and other team's responsibilities (especially with Team 7). A summary of the decisions was to be posted on our website.
After that, we went back to the design of the submarine. We reached the conclusion that our hull's design so far was good, but we should further investigate its reliabiliy by contacting the Ocean Engineering department at MIT and reading books our mentor referred us to.
For the next team meeting, we plan to decide on a final design for the hull, and start working on life support systems on the sub.
Posted by Waseem Bakr on 10/04/01
Oct 10
Today, we discussed life support on our submarine. This included issues such as providing the crew with oxygen, dealing with waste products, heating issues, etc. The results of our discussion are posted on our life support page. We also discussed the design of the hatch and the docking system of our submarine.
Posted by Waseem Bakr on 10/10/01
Oct 15
Our team visited Vent 4 (the habitat team) and discussed with them docking issues. We were in favor of external docking because we thought it would save space and money in the habitat design. They thought internal docking would be a better idea because if anything goes wrong and the submarine needs to be fixed, it would be virtually impossible to fix it outside the habitat. Also, transferring samples from our science basket would be difficult if we used external docking. Finally, we agreed to use both methods. The ROVs and AUVs would be the main occupants of the docking sphere during normal operation of the submarine, and the submarine would dock externally. If the submarine is need of repair, the ROVs and AUVs would leave the docking sphere and we would bring the submarine inside.
We also presented them with our hatch design and agreed to contact them later to provide them with more details on our planned docking mechanism.
Posted by Waseem Bakr on 10/17/01