PRESS RELEASE
For immediate release; 20 January 2012
IMarEST SPONSORS 1ST EUROPEAN HUMAN-POWERED SUBMARINE RACES
Building and racing human-powered submarines may not be an Olympic sport, but the inaugural European International Submarine Races (eISR), being held at Gosport, Hampshire, UK during the week of 25 June 2012, with IMarEST as a sponsor, is set to capture the imagination – and test the engineering expertise and stamina of enterprising university students from three continents.
The eISR will take place in QinetiQ’s Ocean Basin, the largest freshwater tank in Europe, which at 122m x 61m and 5.5m deep has the capacity of 16 Olympic swimming pools, and is normally used to assess the manoeuvrability of scale ship and submarine models in different sea conditions. From 25-28 June it will be the setting for teams from Canada, France, Oman, UK, and USA. They will all have designed and built their own submarines and will then race them flooded, piloted and pedalled by a scuba diver, with the teams constantly modifying their craft during the week to perfect their performance. Typically the submarines range in length from 3m to 4m and travel at up to 7kts.
“This is the first time these races have been held outside the USA and already teams have registered from École Polytechnique de Montréal; École de Technologie Supérieure, Quebec; Sultan Qaboos University, Oman; University of Bath, UK; University of Michigan, and Texas A&M University – both from the USA,” explains Race Director, Dr William Megill, FIMarEST, Director of the Ocean Technologies Lab in the Mechanical Engineering Department at the University of Bath, who has taken teams to the US races on three occasions . “We are hoping there may be several more entries from either side of the Atlantic.
“The Races combine an engineering design challenge with the technical skill development, and sets them in a unique and exciting sporting competition. There are very real applications for the science and technology employed in these craft as we seek to find ever more effective ways of exploring the waters of the world using autonomous underwater vehicles.”
The challenge will run over a week, with a first day of final readying, ballasting, dry judging and diver checkouts. The races proper are planned to start on the second day, and run through to the end of the fifth morning. The final afternoon will be reserved for a playoff round, where the best boats will go head to head. Awards will be made for speed, manoeuvrability (the course includes a slalom element which has never been tried before), and design – the latter to encourage creativity and innovation.
The eISR is sponsored by the Institute of Marine Engineering, Science and Technology (IMarEST), the Society for Underwater Technology, and QinetiQ. The judging panel will be chaired by Vice Admiral Sir Robert Hill, KBE, FIMarEST, and consists of experienced submarine engineers.
“QinetiQ is delighted to be host to the inaugural eISR event at our Haslar site in June this year,” says Sarah Kenny, Managing Director, QinetiQ Maritime. “We have a long and prestigious history of being at the heart of UK Naval Platform and Equipment Design and Test, and our Ocean Basin, which is the largest facility of its type in Europe, will provide the ideal setting for this exciting event. The Ocean Basin is used today to de-risk and evaluate platform design integrity, measuring the manoeuvring and sea-keeping performance of surface ship and submarine models which are powered using electric motors. As a consequence, the use of human power represents quite a departure and offers an exciting opportunity to witness the relative performance of innovative design solutions developed by the competitors.”
The history of submarine racing – and the rules
Submarine racing has a twenty-year history, which began in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida in the late 1980s. The International Submarine Races (www.isrsubrace.org) have been held every other year since 1989, though the venue moved to a US naval testing facility after the third race – a move which greatly simplified the logistics, and which allowed the focus of the competition to shift to innovation, especially in the propulsion systems. In the most recent races, 28 teams took part, fielding 36 submarines.
The basic rules of the competition are straightforward – teams must design, build and race flooded submarines piloted by one or two scuba divers, who must be fully enclosed within the hull of the machine. All propulsion power must be provided by the diver during the race (no energy storage devices such as flywheels or batteries are allowed), but otherwise the design rules are open to whatever innovation teams decide to use.
“All the teams entering the eISR have competed in the USA, but I am delighted to know that three of them (from Oman, Montreal and Michigan) are building brand new boats designed especially for our race,” says William Megill.
Engineering innovation and sporting achievement
The students’ designs are submarines in the fullest sense of the word, minus the one constraint of watertight hull. The removal of that constraint ensures that the competition is about engineering innovation and sporting achievement, rather than just about waterproofing. Innovation comes in the design of the hulls to minimise drag and maximise thrust while optimising transmission systems to make best advantage of the pilot’s limited power production. The importance of buoyancy, trim and directional control is highlighted, and innovation encouraged. One-man propeller-powered submarines are now achieving speeds well over 7kts, while those in the non-propeller class are over 5kts, all on less than 600W input power.
The competition is also about developing real, practical engineering skills. In the funding-constrained university environment, the practical elements of curricula have been replaced with theoretical calculation and computer modelling. A submarine big enough to contain a diver is a real, tangible machine, and the mechanisms have to take real forces. At the same time, the challenge isn’t so great that the students can’t make the parts themselves - this provides an invaluable learning experience as they see their CAD drawings come to real life.
Finally, the competition is about working as a team in a time-critical, adrenaline-charged atmosphere. During the build-up to the race, the students learn to exploit each other’s strengths, and design into their machines what they think they will need to succeed at the races. In initial testing, they learn where the weaknesses are, and make considered adjustments to their designs. Then, once they arrive on the racecourse, and really put their machines to the test, they invariably find new challenges, and have to bring out their engineering knowledge to find solutions on-the-fly with limited facilities. Such experience is invaluable to them later in their careers, regardless of the direction they take.
Capturing the imagination of school pupils
Schools and engineering clubs in and around the Gosport area will be invited to see parts of the races. “We want to show budding young engineers just how exciting it can be to take a concept from the paper and computer stage right through every element of building and then put it to the test under competition rules – we’d like to inspire them to consider marine engineering degrees as a result of the eISR,” says William Megill.”We will also be inviting guests from military and civilian organisations to see for themselves the astonishing capabilities of the students.”
The eISR will play host on 27 June to a graduate fair and to master classes on underwater technology in all its guises; and formal and informal social events will take place throughout the week. Further information on all aspects of the Race Week is available at www.subrace.eu
ENDS