bathysphere

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bathysphere

A bathysphere or bathysphere (also known as a deep sea sphere ) is a pressure chamber with an internal atmospheric pressure and is used for diving . The word is made up of the two Greek words bathys (deep) and sphaira ( sphere ). The thick walls are tight and withstand the water pressure, so the pressure in the cabin does not change in the water, unlike the diving bell .

The bathysphere is a hollow sphere that is lowered into the depths of the sea by a mothership on a cable. It doesn't have its own propulsion system like a deep-sea submarine .

The immersion sphere of the later bathyscaphe is also known as the bathysphere .

The first bathysphere was built in 1930 by Professor Charles William Beebe and his engineer Otis Barton . The idea came from Beebe and originally envisaged a cylindrical pressure body, Barton improved this construction by using a spherical shape. With this device they dived 435 meters below the surface of the Bermuda Islands in 1930 , 661 meters in 1932 and on August 15, 1934 - a sensational at the time - 923 meters below the surface of the sea. An improved construction by Barton called the Benthoscope had a greater wall thickness and thus reached a depth of approx. 1370 m in August 1949.

The Beebe and Barton bathysphere was technically very simple. It was a hollow steel ball with holes for quartz glass windows, the access hatch and the cable feed, which was suspended from a steel cable. The entrance was at the rear, the hatch there was screwed on with wing bolts from the outside after the crew had boarded. Apart from battery-operated headlights and a telephone connection to the mother ship, there was no technical equipment on board. Carbon dioxide was extracted from the breath by soda lime placed in a bowl , and conversely, oxygen was supplied from a pressure bottle. During later dives, the air circulation was additionally stimulated by an accompanying fan .

Technical data of the first bathysphere

  • 1.44 m diameter
  • Wall thickness 38 mm
  • Access hatch diameter 35 cm
  • three quartz glass windows : 20 cm in diameter, 75 mm in thickness
  • Weight (without passengers): 2270 kg

Web links

Commons : Bathysphere  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. a b William Beebe: 923 meters below sea level. FA Brockhaus, Leipzig, 1935.