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Submersible

 
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A submersible is a type of underwater
Underwater

Underwater is a term describing the realm below the surface of water where the water exists in a natural feature such as an ocean, sea, lake, pond, or river....
 vessel with limited mobility (with respect to service range) which is typically transported to its area of operation by a surface vessel or large submarine.






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Submerge2
Submersible Named Star Iii in Front of Scripps Institution of Oceanography
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A submersible is a type of underwater
Underwater

Underwater is a term describing the realm below the surface of water where the water exists in a natural feature such as an ocean, sea, lake, pond, or river....
 vessel with limited mobility (with respect to service range) which is typically transported to its area of operation by a surface vessel or large submarine. Used by oceanographers and marine scientists. Apart from size, the technical difference between a 'submersible' and a 'submarine' is that submersibles are not totally autonomous. They may rely on a support facility or vessel for charging of batteries, high pressure air, high pressure oxygen replenishment, or all of these. The main problem with submersibles is that they may be relatively small, holding only a small crew.

A submersible vessel has greater mobility, using propeller screws
Propeller

A propeller is a type of fan which transmits power by converting rotational motion into thrust. It can be used to drive an fixed-wing aircraft, ship, or the fluid within a pump....
 or pump-jet
Pump-jet

A pump-jet or water jet is a ocean system that creates a jet of water for Marine propulsion. The mechanical arrangement may be a ducted propeller with nozzle, or a turbopump and nozzle....
s, than submersible chambers (diving chambers or diving bell
Diving bell

A diving bell, also known as a wet bell, is a cable-suspended airtight chamber, open at the bottom like a moon pool structure, that is lowered underwater to operate as a base or a means of transport for a small number of divers....
s), which are suspended from a cable
Cable

A cable is a large fiber or metal rope, used for hauling, lifting, or towing, or an assembly of two or more insulated electrical conductors, laid up together as an assembly....
 and winch
Winch

A winch is a mechanical device that is used to pull in or let out or otherwise adjust the "tension" of a rope or wire rope . In its simplest form it consists of a spool and attached hand crank ....
 operated from the diving support vessel
Diving support vessel

A diving support vessel is a ship that is used as a floating base for professional diving projects.Commercial Diving Support Vessels emerged during the 1960s and 1970s when the need arose for diving operations to be performed below and around oil production platforms and associated installations in open water in the North Sea and Gulf of Me...
.

Operation


Submersibles differ from submarine
Submarine

A submarine is a watercraft capable of independent operation below water. It differs from a submersible, which has only limited underwater capability....
s in that submersibles typically have shorter range, and operate underwater almost exclusively, having little function at the surface. Many submersibles operate on a "tether" or "umbilical", remaining connected to a tender
Ship's tender

A ship's tender, usually referred to as a tender, is a boat, or a larger ship used to service a ship, generally by transporting people and/or supplies to and from shore or another ship....
 (a submarine, surface vessel or platform). It can dive over 6 miles (10 km).

ROVs

Small unmanned submersibles called "marine remotely operated vehicles" or MROVs are widely used today to work in water too deep or too dangerous for divers.

Remotely operated vehicles (ROV
Rov

Rov is a Talmudic concept which means the majority.It is based on the passage in Exodus 23;2: "after the majority to wrest" , which in Rabbinic interpretation means, that you shall accept things as the majority....
s) repair offshore petroleum
Petroleum

Petroleum or crude oil is a naturally occurring, flammable liquid found in rock formations in the Earth consisting of a complex mixture of hydrocarbons of various molecular weights, plus other organic compounds....
 platforms and attach cables to sunken ships to hoist them. Such remotely operated vehicles are attached by a tether (a thick cable providing power and communications) to a control center on a ship. Operators on the ship see video images sent back from the robot and may control its propellers and manipulator arm. The wreck of the Titanic
RMS Titanic

The Royal Mail Ship Titanic was an Olympic class ocean liner superliner owned by the White Star Line and built at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland....
 was explored by such a vehicle, as well as by a manned vessel.

Among the most famous submersibles is the deep-submergence research vessel DSV Alvin
DSV Alvin

Alvin is a 16-ton, manned deep-ocean research submersible owned by the United States Navy and operated by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Woods Hole, Massachusetts....
.

See also

  • Timeline of underwater technology
    Timeline of underwater technology

    This is a timeline of underwater technology.The entries marked ## are about decompression tables....
  • Diving chamber
    Diving chamber

    A diving chamber or submersible chamber has two main functions:* as a simpler form of Submersible to take underwater divings underwater and to provide a temporary base and retrieval system in the depths;...
  • Diving bell
    Diving bell

    A diving bell, also known as a wet bell, is a cable-suspended airtight chamber, open at the bottom like a moon pool structure, that is lowered underwater to operate as a base or a means of transport for a small number of divers....
  • Benthoscope
    Benthoscope (vessel)

    The Benthoscope was a deep sea submersible designed by Otis Barton after the Second World War. He hired the Watson-Stillman Company, who had earlier constructed his and William Beebe's bathysphere to produce the new design of deep diving vessel, which was named from the Greek prefix -benthos or bottom....
  • Bathyscaphe
    Bathyscaphe

    A bathyscaphe is a free-diving self-propelled deep-sea diving submersible, consisting of a crew cabin similar to a bathysphere , but suspended below a float rather than from a surface cable, as in the classic bathysphere design....
  • Bathysphere
    Bathysphere (vessel)

    A bathysphere is a spherical deep-sea submersible which is unpowered and is lowered into the ocean on a cable.The first bathysphere was devised by Otis Barton in 1928....
  • Narco submarine
    Narco submarine

    A narco submarine is a home-made marine vessel built by Illegal drug tradekers to smuggle their goods. They are especially known to be used by Colombian drug cartel members to export cocaine from Colombia to the United States....
  • Underwater Acoustic Positioning System
    Underwater Acoustic Positioning System

    An Underwater Acoustic Positioning System is a system for the tracking and navigation of underwater vehicles or divers by means of acoustic distance and/or direction measurements, and subsequent position triangulation....


External links



=Sources= Polmar, Norman. "Bathyscaph." World Book Online Reference Center. 2008. [Place of access.] 26 Jan. 2008 http://worldbookonline.com/wb/Article?id=ar049420.