Cousteau's Shark Suit
THE MAGAZINE DEVOTED TO NICKEL AND ITS APPLICATIONS
|
 |
A ONE-MAN SUBMARINE that looks and swims like a real shark.
|
 |
FABIEN COUSTEAU inside a prototype of the submersible, tests an air-piston system that creates
side-to-side motion.
|
 |
AN EARLY PROTOTYPE was destroyed by sharks.
|
 |
THIS UNMANNED PROTOTYPE was attacked and destroyed.
|
 |
EDDIE PAUL with the stainless steel tubing that protects the diver and simulates the ribs of real
Great White shark.
|
 |
THE FINAL SUBMERSIBLE being tested in the safe confines of a swimming pool.
|
 |
TESTING THE MANEUVERABILITY of the submersible in a swimming pool.
|
 |
A LIFE-LIKE HEAD is attached to the stainless steel frame.
|
 |
EDDIE PAUL with the head of the final submersible.
|
|
|
Stainless steel is taking the bite out of shark research By Dean
Jobb
Nickel Magazine, March 2006 -- Eddie Paul has built a better shark -- make that a better fake shark.
The California-based movie-prop maker and inventor has designed a one-man submarine that looks and swims like a real shark and features a protective shell of stainless steel.
Paul, president and chief executive officer of E.P. Industries in El Segundo, created the 4-metre-long submersible at the request of Fabien Cousteau, grandson of Jacques Cousteau (1910-1997), the famed underwater explorer. Cousteau was a customer with a vision: he wanted to swim alongside the feared great white shark while videotaping the creature close up.
The result was a prototype Paul nicknamed "Sushi," with a tough, rubber-like skin stretched over a framework of S30400 stainless steel tubing bent into oval shapes to simulate a shark’s ribs.
"They needed something strong, so I chose stainless steel, which I use quite a bit," says Paul, whose company has built three other mechanical sharks and makes an array of hotrods and motorcycles for Hollywood movies and car shows. "Stainless is rigid and corrosion-resistant, and you can use a lighter weight design than carbon steel."
About 570 kilograms of tubing went into Sushi. The ribs closest to the head, which is mounted on a hinge to allow a diver to get inside, are 5 centimetres in diameter, and the wall thickness is 1.6 millimetres. Since the sub’s body tapers toward the tail, progressively smaller-diameter tubing was used. The tubing was bolted to a flexible spine of laminated polycarbonate strips, allowing the tail about 140 degrees of movement. An air-piston system provides the side-to-side motion that suggests a swimming shark, and the diver steers using a joystick.
The sub fills with water when in use, so stainless steel was chosen to prevent corrosion. To increase buoyancy, larger tubing was filled with foam, and smaller sizes were plugged to trap air inside. "We try to make sure every component has neutral buoyancy," says Paul.
Cousteau and his team put Sushi, renamed "Troy," through its paces in shark-infested waters off Mexico for an upcoming television documentary. The sub’s paint job makes it a dead ringer for a great white, allowing it to blend in (it even has a few broken teeth). A camera inside a fake remora fish mounted on top of the sub enabled Cousteau to record shark behaviour while remaining unobtrusive.
The stainless ribs provided a measure of safety in case of shark attack, says Paul, though, in the end, none of the beasts turned on their final man-made companion.
The shark sub has spawned a couple of spinoff projects: Paul has drafted plans for a two-man wet sub with a framework of stainless steel tubing that would be buoyant when submersed yet so light that two divers could carry it on land. And the U.S. Navy is interested in Paul’s idea for a "stealth sub" powered by a swimming motion that would evade systems for detecting the signature of a propeller.
Dean Jobb is a Halifax, N.S.-based freelance writer.
PHOTOS: E.P. Industries
E.P. Industries |
