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www.reinforcedplastics.com 7REINFORCEDplastics NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013

Submersible features carbon fibre hull

WORKING WITH Boeing and the

University of Washington in

Seattle, OceanGate Inc. has

completed the initial carbon fi bre

composite hull design and feasi-

bility study for its new manned

submersible, named Cyclops™.

Under a contract issued to

Boeing Research & Technology

(BR&T), OceanGate, the Applied

Physics Laboratory at the Univer-

sity of Washington (APL-UW) and

Boeing have validated the basic

hull design for a submersible

vehicle able to reach depths of

3000 m (9800 ft).

“Recent advances in material

science, manufacturing and

testing facilities that combine

innovative engineering processes

have allowed for a unique

collaboration between Ocean-

Gate, Boeing and the APL team

to complete the feasibility study

and move the process to the

manufacturing stage,” says

Stockton Rush, chief executive

offi cer of OceanGate, a Seattle-

headquartered provider of deep-

sea manned submersibles. The

Cyclops submersible will feature

a 7 inch (17.8 cm) thick carbon

fi bre composite hull, manufac-

tured using proprietary Boeing

fi bre placement technology. The

ability to place thousands of

individual strips of pre-impreg-

nated fi bre accurately will over-

come many of the hard to

control variables surrounding

traditional fi lament winding

processes, OceanGate reports,

and permit the hull to withstand

the very high compressive loads

at 3000 m (300 bar/4300 psi).

The use of carbon fi bre

composite will also help make

Cyclops signifi cantly lighter than

other subsea manned submersi-

bles, OceanGate claims, making

deployment operations faster,

easier and cost-effi cient. When

commercially available in 2016,

Cyclops will be the only privately

owned deep-water (greater than

2000 m/6600 ft) manned

submersible available for

contracts. A follow-on 6000 m

version is slated for completion in

the fourth quarter of 2016.

Operating at depths beyond

1000 m with remotely operated

vehicles (ROVs) is extremely diffi -

cult as they require large heavy

tethers and specialised support

vessels, OceanGate explains.

Using a patent-pending

submerging Launch, Retrieval

and Transport (LRT) platform,

OceanGate says it can operate a

manned vehicle with ships of

opportunity at much lower costs

than most other manned vehi-

cles and, in many cases, even

less expensively than ROVs. .

OceanGate;

www.oceangate.com

APL-UW;

www.apl.washington.edu

Boeing; www.boeing.com

RP0613_appsNews 7 01-11-2013 09:38:10