Proceedings of the Thirty-second (2022) International Ocean and Polar Engineering Conference
Shanghai, China, June 5–10, 2022
Copyright © 2022 by the International Society of Offshore and Polar Engineers (ISOPE)
ISBN 978-1-880653-81-4; ISSN 1098-6189

www.isope.org

Overall design of capsule modular underwater viewing platform
Weihua Chen1,2, Tongtong Guo2, Jia Zhou2, Hong Yi1*
1. State Key Lab of Ocean Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
Shanghai, China.
2. State Key Laboratory of Deep-sea Manned Submersible, China Ship Scientific Research Center.
Wuxi, Jiangsu, China.

Sightseeing submersible is a kind of underwater vehicle which can dive,float, and underwater navigation in the water (Liu S, 2013). Since 1964,
when the Auguste Piccard, the world's first sightseeing submersible,
was commissioned in Switzerland, some 60 have been built around theworld. They operate in resorts such as the Cayman Islands, Barbados,Virgin Islands, Hawaii, Gulf of Mexico, Canary Islands, Mediterranean,Guam, Saipan, Bali, Taiwan, Jeju island and Okinawa. Each year, morethan two million tourists take sightseeing submersibles, worth $150
million (Bednarova Z 2011, Bruce L J 2012, Smith C 2010).

ABSTRACTIn this paper, a capsule type modular underwater viewing platform withlarge underwater field of view is designed, which could be applied tounderwater sightseeing tours, underwater scientific expeditions andenvironmental testing and etcetera. The overall scheme design index ismainly demonstrated through the platform demand analysis, capabilityrequirements, working mode, use process and so on. Then refer to theoverall design index to complete the overall design of the platform.
Finally, focus on the transparent plexiglass pressure-resistant structure
to carry out structural calculation analysis and check.

KEY WORDS: Capsule; modular; overall design; underwaterviewing platform.

INTRODUCTION
At present, the main leisure tourism at sea is to go to sea with a large
luxury cruise and visit some port cities, shallow diving to explore
shallow sea fish or coral life, island fishing, and coastline swimming,
sampan gliding and so on. Luxury cruise ships mainly experience thefloating climate and various entertainment facilities on the cruise.
Shallow sea diving can only be experienced by diving under theguidance of professional personnel and wearing professional equipment.
The elderly, young students and other personnel cannot personallyobserve Marine fish and creatures in shallow sea waters. In addition,
Marine research also puts forward the demand of underwater in-situ
observation. Therefore, this paper proposes a capsule modular
underwater viewing platform to fill the market gap.

Fig1. Huandao Jiaolong manned submersible

Aquarium
An aquarium is an institution that collects, raises, and exhibits aquaticanimals. It can only raise Marine or freshwater organisms, and can also
raise them concurrently. There are public aquariums for viewing or
popularizing scientific knowledge, as well as special ones for scientificresearch and teaching. "Oceanarium", "Undersea World" and "Polar
Ocean World" are all branches of aquarium (Zhang X, 2018).

DEVELOPMENT STATUS
In order to meet the needs of underwater sightseeing, in addition to therelatively primitive underwater diving, there are mainly mobilesightseeing submersible and fixed aquarium.

Sightseeing submersibles

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