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From: dep@ius3.ius.cs.cmu.edu (David Pugh)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Plastic-hulled subs?
Message-ID: <10020@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Date: 9 Oct 89 04:22:35 GMT
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Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI
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From: dep@ius3.ius.cs.cmu.edu (David Pugh)

Anyone know whether using plastic to build a submarine hull has been
considered? It would seem to have several advantages:
    o	Most plastics dampen sound much better than metal.
    o	Reduced MAD signature.
    o	If the plastic were clear, it could be optically checked for defects.
    o	You could have portholes (this isn't purely ascetic -- lidar & light
	amplification could be used for obstacle avoidance, tracking, etc.).

On the down side, though, a plastic hull would have to be much thicker than a
metal one (then again, plastic is lighter) and it would be hard (impossible?)
to "cast" a submarine-size hull as a single piece.
-- 
... He was determined to discover the		David Pugh
underlying logic behind the universe.		...!seismo!cmucspt!ius3!dep
    Which was going to be hard, because
there wasn't one.	_Mort_,  Terry Pratchett