![]() ![]() ![]() The step from a hemisphere to a complete sphere is not large, provided the right adhesive needed to glue the two halves together is available. The submersible is equipped with electric motors, which can propel the researchers for up to five hours during their search for the incredible squids before needing to be recharged. She is equipped with two viewing domes, with the larger dome below the bow and the smaller dome (61 cm diameter) acting as the entry port. “LULA 1000” is 7.5 meters long and 2.65 meters tall. PLEXIGLAS® made it possible for the first high-definition films to be shot in the deep sea, with the almost alien world being recorded through the portholes of the submersibles without any distortion.ĭescending into the world of the giant squid © Dave Mothershaw / Röhm GmbH The result is an almost semicircular window that provides a 150-degree view of the sea and is almost invisible under water. “After such a block has been molded, it is then heated to over 150 degrees Celsius and shaped into a hemisphere under great pressure.” This window required a thickness of 17 centimeters,” remembers Stuber. “To create a curved window of this size, we first had to develop a block of PLEXIGLAS® which was thick enough to withstand the water pressure. “LULA 1000” accommodates three crew members and is equipped with a PLEXIGLAS® viewing dome with a diameter of 1.4 meters. It was commissioned by the Rebikoff-Niggeler Foundation in 2011 in order to track down deep-sea squids. Röhm worked together with us on every single detail in developing the dome.”Īnother milestone in the history of submersibles is the “ LULA 1000”. “We desperately wanted a submersible which was made in Germany. At the same time, a PLEXIGLAS® window is also extremely safe as it can withstand the tons of water pressure, while also having additional safety reserves for the compression load,” explains Wolfgang Stuber, special glazing specialist for the PLEXIGLAS® brand. “PLEXIGLAS® was the ideal material for submersibles even back then, as it allowed the pilots a view of the deep sea without any optical distortions and did not fog up despite the temperature difference between the exterior and interior. This submersible was equipped with a viewing dome and a much larger bow window, both of which were manufactured from the brand acrylic glass. This resulted in a private initiative of Austrian engineers creating the “Austria 1” in 1986/1987. As the whole idea of deep sea diving is to explore the ocean, developers focused their efforts on building submersibles with ever larger windows. ![]() The windows of the ‘Trieste’ were manufactured from PLEXIGLAS®, as the plasticity of this material has always proven absolutely reliable.Īlthough the “Trieste” provided the first look at the depths of the ocean, it was almost like looking through a keyhole as the technology at the time did not allow for larger windows. ![]()
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