Exploded view of vehicle structure

Box Frame

The Box Frame is the foundation of the Structure design. It is made of welded aluminum tubing with holes for mounting the different pieces of the submarine. There are vertical support bars in the middle of the frame for extra stability. On the top of the frame, there are horizontal support bars which the upper hull will be mounted on. These bars are also welded. The dimension of the frame is 26.25’’x 9’’ x 5’’.

The aluminum tubing can endure immense amounts of stress and is easy to machine. Adding holes to the basic frame prior to anodization allowed for mounting of all the things that need to be attached.

The frame of the 2006-2007 vehicle, Proteus, was longer to accommodate a longer upper hull and narrower because there were no plans to mount a DVL. The width of Triton’s frame will allow for mounting of a DVL for lake tests. The hull mounting differs from that of Proteus in that there is no key system, which caused binding because of tolerance issues.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Skid with J Support

Skids were incorporated to the Proteus as a built in stand for the vehicle. It was a successful design change, was incorporated into Triton. The skids attach at the bottom of the box frame and support the entire vehicle without anything internal touching the ground.

The original skid is made of welded aluminum tubing which is capable of holding the weight of the vehicle. A plate at the top attaches the skid to the box frame. Different from the Proteus skid is a J Support tube which is also welded to the side of the skid. The battery pod for this vehicle will be attached to the frame using aluminum “J’s” which the pod will sit on. For added stability, the J’s will be bolted to the skid supports which will prevent them from being too loose.

Due to issues with anodization, probably due to bad welding, two of the skids did not return with the rest of the parts. Temporary skids were made to allow the vehicle to be used until new, waterjet cut skids are cut.

The final skids were waterjet cut out of ½” delrin.

 

Battery Pod Holders (J Support)

The battery pod support is separate from the battery pod. Two supports are required to mount each pod to the vehicle. The length and final angle of the curved portion was designed to allow the battery pods to be placed on the supports without being concerned about the pods falling off, to put less stress on the fastening pin during sideways applied torque, and to not require too much vertical motion to remove the pod from the supports. The cutout is provided to reduce weight and to allow for support mounting using a bolt and a nut rather than a screw into a tapped hole. The pin holes are countersunk to make pin insertion easier.

Panels

The side panels are laser cut out of transparent 1/8” red acrylic sheet. The purposes of the side panels are to support the altimeters, marker droppers, and sponsor logos. The altimeters mount to the front side panels, and two marker droppers to the aft port side panel.

 

 

 

 

 

Thruster Mounts

The designs of this year's thruster mounts are based on the previous year’s design because of reliable performance and ease in machining. A custom made attachment block is bolted to the thruster to provide mounting points. Then two attachment plates and an attachment bar connect the thruster to the mount plate, which is securely mounted on the runner bars of the box frame. The center part of attachment plates and mount plate is cut out to reduce weight. The cable connected to the thruster will pass through the center space of the mount plate.

Hydrophone Mounts

The hydrophones are attached to a DeepSea mount. This mount attaches to a plate that spans between the skids.

Handles

The handles were designed and added to the frame for the purpose of aiding transport of the vehicle by hand. The set of four standard pull handles are mounted to the outside of the frame, providing two convenient carrying points on either end of the vehicle. The handles will allow for easier transport of the vehicle when the wagon is not available, as well as easier manual deployment into the water during testing.

 

 

 

Trimming

The trimming system was designed to allow precision trimming while maintaining a low profile physical appearance. The system uses anodized aluminum and brass weights to avoid any chemical interaction with the water. One tube is fastened to each skid, allowing for the possibility of fine trimming in any necessary direction. Each tube can hold up to 1/2 pounds in 1/6 pound increments. The system was designed with ease of use in mind. To change the number of weights, the inner rod simply has to be slid out of the tube, providing access to the weights which can then be removed or added appropriately.

 

Crane Hookpoint

At the competition in San Diego, the vehicle is hoisted in the water by a crane. The divers there want a single hookpoint to attach to with the crane, so that they quickly deploy and recover the vehicle. In previous years, the solution was a rope harness. The rope was unsightly and lead to many other problems, including an incident with proteus when a rope was sucked into a thruster.

Optimally, a hookpoint would be designed into the vehicle that would avoid a rope harness. To accomplish this with Triton’s existing frame, a superstructure is added. This superstructure involves an acrylic “X” (see below) that will ultimately keep a steel wire harness from scratching the hull. The X is attached via four x-plates, which attach it to the vehicle and provide an anchor point for the cable harness.

 

Marker Dropper

The marker dropper was designed with simplicity in mind, with the hope of avoiding any potential malfunctions. Each of the two marker droppers on the vehicle will use a pull solenoid, and will be able to hold one individual darts. Each dart will be held horizontally and will rely on gravity and water resistance to rotate and fall vertically after being released. This orientation minimizes space requirements for the dropping system and makes use of these natural forces to simplify the apparatus.

 

Shroud

The purpose of shroud is to protect the main body of the vehicle from collision against walls. The shrouds of Proteus, composed of only acrylic, cracked too easily in the abuse that they vehicle went to. To improve the structural integrity of the shrouds, as well as to eliminate the unsightly bumpers that were implemented as a solution, the new shrouds will make use of internal delrin beams. These beams will act a second point of attachment between the shroud and the box frame. This will not only add to the protective qualities of the shrouds, but also improve their role as a sturdy mounting surface. The stability of the shrouds is important since the front and back shrouds will be used to support the grabber and switchbox respectively.

The front grabber on Triton is designed to consistently capture and fully constrain the “safe” without becoming entangled in any other mission apparatus.  The openings of the comb-shaped body of the grabber are dimensioned to allow clearance for the PVC frame of the safe. The small flippers that block the openings pivot in order to accept the “safe” into the opening, and are spring loaded to ensure that the “safe” remains fully secured.