The Making of the Deep Submergence Vehicle (DSV) Limiting Factor - A Documentary by Nick Verola

[Music] in 2019 history was made when explorer victor viscovo became the first person in history to dive to the deepest point in all five of earth's oceans american divers set a new record for the deepest dive in history victor vescovo plunged nearly 36 thousand feet in his watercraft he has skied the north and south poles and conquered the highest peaks on all seven continents but after reaching the highest place on earth he was also determined to reach the lowest it was a feat that required an entire team of professionals from a variety of fields to pull off nothing like this had ever even been attempted before and it wouldn't have been possible without the first commercially certified unlimited depth submersible limiting factor this is the story of how that one-of-a-kind machine came into existence [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] what does it take to reach the bottom of the oceans it takes a very strong will to do that you need obviously resources and you do need a great deal of innovation because this has never really even been attempted before on this scale by the time victor viscovo decided to pursue reaching the bottom of all of the planet's oceans he was no stranger to overcoming ambitious challenges he had completed a 20-year career as an intelligence officer in the u.s navy and became a successful entrepreneur and investor as well in his personal life he made a name for himself as an avid mountaineer and achieved the explorer's grand slam of reaching the north and south poles as well as all seven summits of the planet's highest mountains it seemed fitting that his next challenge would be reaching earth's deepest points as well the genesis of wanting to do that came really from a desire to look at a new challenge that hadn't been done before i'd been heavy into mountain climbing for about 25 years but i'd pretty much achieved what i'd wanted to do there and i was looking for something maybe that hadn't been done before and i thought that there was a nice symmetry going from mountain climbing going high to maybe going low and i was pretty shocked to discover in the year when i started this project back in 2015 or 16 that no one had been to the bottom before the world's oceans and i found that extraordinary and i started doing some research and the businessman and me tried to figure out what it would take to do that and realize that it was expensive and it would take a lot of work but it was doable and that's when i reached out to trident submarines in florida who had an idea of a full ocean dub submersible that could be reusable to do this and that's when i contacted them my name is patrick lahi i am the president and founding partner at triton submarines the initial contact from victor came in the form of an email just a fairly innocuous email and that was followed up with a telephone discussion and ultimately with a site visit where he flew out to the bahamas and joined us on the sea trial of a brand new triton 3303 and during that time we had a chance to really discuss what it was he wanted to achieve and how triton might be able to help him do that victor asked us if it was possible and of course my immediate response was yes of course it's possible not only is it possible you know this is something that we've been thinking seriously about for the last six years and i've been thinking about for my entire life so uh the opportunity to do it of course was unprecedented and we're incredibly grateful to victor that he had this interest which of course created a need and that need created an opportunity for triton to cr to develop a revolutionary new product the triton 36002 or the lf as victor calls it really i guess it began with john ramsey you know john ramsey who is the principal mechanical design engineer at triton and really the the person who gave the sub its shape its appearance my role in the project was as the principal designer and engineer for the triton 36002 limiting factor oh getting hearing we had a potential customer for a full ocean depth vehicle i mean it's the it's the ultimate goal is to design a full ocean depth submersible at that time we had a design and a concept for an entirely glass-hulled vehicle victor's ambitions were were very different he victor's very kind of goal-driven and he didn't see the need to invest or or take the risk with a glass-hulled vehicle so we focused on on more traditional methods and went down the route of the titanium with the with the acrylic viewports so there was a lot of give and take and then we decided that there'd be a nine month design and construction contract that i would pay them for and then they would flesh out what they thought would be a good compromise between their ideal dream and what i thought would be very practical and john ramsey took the lead on that and within nine months we had design that we both agreed would be workable and affordable and could get done so i work very closely with tom blades triton's principal electrical engineer we're we're based in in mevi which is in the south west of england in dartmoor national park it's a small village with about 20 houses the design office here is in a 350 year old cottage my role on the lf project was the principal systems engineer so i'm responsible for all of the electrical systems to power the vehicle and to sense what's going on outside it you can't just sort of design one system at a time in isolation you have to look at the whole picture if i change something on the electrical system then that will have an effect to [Music] size and shape and the weight of the submersible so john and i have to work really closely to design the vehicle as a whole during the early development of the of the vehicle we were still you know still taking ideas and forms and um we kind of soon realized you've got to rethink you've got to rethink everything about this this vehicle it's so kind of focused in what it has to do in getting down to these depths it's such a bit of raw engineering really you you're not ever thinking about the normal things that we would consider submarine comfort and um surface stability and getting in and out of it those things all became very secondary the the shape of the of the lf is very much uh specific to going up and down through the water column so one of the first decisions that you have to make when you're going to build a pressure hull is what's the material going to be made of and we looked at a whole range of materials we ultimately chose titanium and then we had to identify a vendor here in the united states that had the capacity to create the titanium pieces that we needed for that main pressure hull we were naturally drawn to ati ladish because of their demonstrated success of producing similar titanium pressure hulls in the past [Music] with a rich history of forging difficult metal alloys for industrial and military use since the 1930s ati was the perfect choice to forge the titanium sphere for the lf project the sphere halves began as titanium pancakes that would then be superheated in order to prepare them to be forged into their spherical shape using a large frame and metal tool [Music] today's forging process is critical for the rest of the program and from here on out everything is set forward based on what we're going to do today for the forging ati had been preparing for months to ensure everything was ready for this critical moment if the heated titanium lost too much heat during the transfer from furnace to the frame then it could form incorrectly during the process and there would be no choice but to start over it was a critical sequence of events that could postpone and possibly end the entire expedition before it had even begun so the process of forging the hull is almost primal it is an incredible thing to see because it's spectacular but yeah the pressure hall for the lf was forged in fire the first major milestone of the lf project had been completed the sphere halves were now made but they would require much more work before they could be considered complete yeah it was a pretty exciting moment when we actually heard that they were forging the titanium hemispheres you know the ore had been mined and they were actually hammering it into shape in wisconsin and that was really when i knew it was real because i was spending a lot of money and buying a lot of titanium but it was real this stuff was actually being hammered into shape um well i got an email and it was basically patrick of the team saying that the forging went well and it looked like we had two good titanium hemispheres although the real trick they warned me was going to be in the machining that getting it down to 0.1 percent of perfect spherocity was going to be a challenge with the sphere successfully forged the physical process of creating the limiting factor had officially begun but it was far from over the next step in the process of creating the pressure hull would prove to be equally as important as the forging process itself yeah so once the hemispheres had been formed then those hemispheres were transported to los angeles where stadtco the company we had chosen to do the machining and then they begin the process of creating the perfect hemisphere out of those roughly formed hemispheres that came out of the fire the reason it's important that the machining is essentially perfect i mean point one of a millimeter over the full diameter of the finished hemisphere is that a perfect sphere perfect sphericity is an important part of ensuring equal distribution of forces and pressure and the only way to achieve that is to build as close to a perfect sphere as you can get which in our case was 0.1 of a millimeter over the full diameter of the pressure hull [Music] here on this hemisphere we're cutting titanium it's a rather difficult material to cut but it's very very tough very lightweight and it probably works very well for their submarine hemispheres they're using carbide inserts to cut the outside profile they're using a computerized numerical machine that'll cut the exact profile of the hemisphere to hold the tight tolerance of the radius because this is a hemisphere for a submarine the customer has very tight tolerances that takes a very specialized machine to hold the requirements of the tolerance on this type of a project we'll be cutting two hemispheres just to hold the perfect diameter once they're both joined together to build the submarine once we're done with the turning here this uh hemisphere will go to another five-axis milling machine where they'll actually go and they'll cut windows into it to attach the viewports the hatch door and the penetrator plates which allows the the whole hemisphere to come together as a part of the submarine statco is looking forward to seeing where this project will go in the future and how it performs and and the final product how how well it's accepted by the customer although the sphere was complete and ready to be assembled there was a major milestone yet to clear in order to be raided and certified the sphere needed to be tested to the pressure found at the deepest point in the ocean the equipment needed to perform this test could only be found in one specific place on the other side of the planet a key thing we needed to do to make the submersible commercially rated which is was another whole different issue that we had to resolve because it added more expense to the submersible added more schedule but it made it safer and potentially saleable on the back end but to do that we needed to test it and there was only one place in the world that could test the capsule because it was large and that was at the krylov institute in st petersburg russia yeah so among the challenges that we had on the project was identifying a place in the world where we could actually test the completed and assembled pressure hull there's only one place in the world that could achieve the the required pressures that we needed to simulate not only full ocean depth but full ocean depth plus 20 so we had to achieve a pressure of 1400 bar 140 megapascals 16 000 psi which roughly equates to more than 45 000 feet underwater only one place could do it that was the krylov state research center in st petersburg russia so the process of pressure testing the pressure boundary for the triton 36002 or the lf involved a variety of steps of course first thing is it arrives at the krylov state research center it's got to be unpacked from its crate it's got to be filled with water and then it's got to be lowered into the chamber sealed into that chamber and pressure tested so the krylov state research center is a remarkable facility and entirely unique in the world now remember we were doing this at a time when tensions between russia and the united states were quite high but you would never know that for the success that we had over there they were a brilliant team to work with now the krylov state research center was actually built during soviet times early 1980s and it was used ostensibly to test the pressure hulls of military submersibles that were being built there for extreme depth the full process would take over a week with multiple tests and modifications to the chamber to ensure the sphere would fit and the final test could proceed as planned [Music] at the extreme pressures required for this test any miscalculation or mistake could prove to be catastrophic to both the sphere and the krylov facility itself at this stage in the project we are about to begin the pressure test of the lf hull and all of the related assemblies the hatch the penetrator plates the viewport assemblies the outcome of this test determines the future of the project right now we're getting it ready and making sure that the geometry all works so that we can pick up the sphere we can get it down into the chamber it's a very tight fit as it goes down into the bottom of the tank plans been very well thought out and carefully executed to begin the test the operators need to pick up the sphere and lower it into the chamber then the chamber will be sealed and pumps will begin forcing water into the chamber to gradually increase the pressure now the team can only watch and wait until the proper pressure is reached one minute 40 seconds five four three two one boom 14 000 meters 140 megapascals congratulations patrick thank you andre this was the defining moment in the project i mean everything was riding on a successful outcome you know we'd done all the design we've done the engineering we've done the fabrication we had high confidence in our engineering in our analysis but of course the proof is in the pudding and this was the first time that the krylov state research center had ever tested something to this extreme pressure so there were plenty of things that could have gone wrong fortunately incredibly things went incredibly well and but i i do remember the moment we achieved our target depth of you know 14 000 meters you know 1400 bar uh you know 140 megapascals whatever 45 000 feet whatever pressure you want to use it was a uh it was an emotional moment i mean i remember as everybody exited the control room and i was standing there by myself i think i had this moment when i suddenly realized that we were going to do this this project was going to happen and this was the physical proof that we could achieve it yeah hearing that the capsule had not just passed the test in st petersburg but also that we got it back that was the real trick we were pretty sure it would pass getting it out was lester i was extremely relieved and it definitely felt like a major milestone had been passed and now all we had to do is put the submarine together and i think we were a little bit optimistic about how simple that would be while the sphere was being built and tested other critical components of the limiting factor such as the syntactic foam were also being machined in other parts of the world these components unique structure and performance characteristics in water would ultimately give the submarine its buoyancy as well as its unique appearance each component would undergo pressure testing and ultimately make its way to triton headquarters in florida where the limiting factor would finally begin to take shape [Music] i think it's important to note that the the triton 36002 was a truly global undertaking we enlisted the help of strategic vendors and companies manufacturers engineers metallurgists i mean you name it from around the world quite literally now we had to think about taking all of these components that have been designed many cases in isolation and put them all together at the triton facility in vero beach florida as the components started coming together or trying to come together for assembly in florida i think there was a bit of optimism about just how easy they thought it would be to get all the parts in florida and just put them together like a lego set but we started falling behind on schedule putting all these pieces together testing them to make sure they worked well together and then making a fully uh functioning submarine so we were in a race against time unfortunately i never wanted to put them in that position where they felt like they were being rushed because this was such a novel craft but you know it was what it was and we just had to make adjustments to the schedule the the biggest headache was the aggressive time scale because we had a hard deadline set by the expedition and if we missed that weather window it would add six months to a year to that expedition so we had to get it done on time there were there was a lot of little little tweaks bits that we needed to add to the vehicle things that changed size that come in from vendors it was it was relentless with the clock ticking and production delays affecting the timeline of victor's expedition plan he decided to fly himself to florida in order to visit triton's manufacturing facility and see their progress for himself it's always very helpful to actually physically go to a place and kind of do the inspection like you do in the military just to get a feel for how things are going and when i went to trident i definitely got the sense that there was a lot of pressure being applied and that we were behind and that there were some difficulties that were unforeseen that they were having to work through but i could tell that the team was working extremely hard in very long hours to put the pieces together find out the weak areas and try and get a working submersible that we could actually test in the water we were in the final assembly phase of the project and you know it wasn't going well when victor did finally show up i think he was surprised at how we maybe weren't as far along as he had hoped we would be but sometimes it can be deceptive in a sub you know you spend all of this time designing engineering and building stuff it all sort of comes together and you sort of think oh my god it's never going to happen and then all of a sudden you know it does although the lf was the primary focus of the team's efforts so far there was another critical component of the system that came with its own challenges the support vessel that would carry the lf and the crew around the world to complete the five deeps expedition the submersible is only one part of a system the system consists of the sub the support vessel and of course the crew critically important part of our success was the support ship this the pressure drop formerly macarthur ii formerly usns indomitable was chosen specifically because of its characteristics of being incredibly efficient and ultra quiet it would be an ideal support vessel for the project of the five deeps expedition it ended up being the right ship with a reasonable amount of refit dollars spent on it and with the deep ocean sonar that it has it's just an incredibly effective system with the pressure drop in port at fort pierce florida and the triton team finishing the final assembly of the limiting factor the time had finally come for the lfc trials to take place in the deep water of the bahamas as victor flew into a small island airport he knew that all the time effort and expense had been building to this moment and his vision of a completed submersible capable of diving to full ocean depth was one step closer to completion it was actually a great experience when we had the sea trials at the bahamas and then just being on the ship that was pretty much done at that point with the with the new captain with the crew the trident guys were there and here is this fully assembled sub that you know went from being just a cad cam drawing from triton to actually physically something you could touch and then getting into it after being in the simulator for many many months and here all the controls and the switches work and the thing powers up and the thrusters are enabled it was a amazing experience to go from concept to an actual living breathing device that could work it was great that was one of the best times that i can remember you know a submersible is a complex craft that's made up of hundreds in some cases thousands in the case of the lf parts the bahamas was the first time the sub as it completed and assembled unit was actually tested physically in the water this was triton's first opportunity to evaluate the submarine as a complete unit as a working craft and to identify anything in the craft that was either deficient or inadequate or that wasn't going to be up to the task of completing the five deeps expedition putting the sub in the water for the first time is it's the bit where my heart is in my in my mouth it's it's incredibly nerve-wracking those first days were awful they were they were they were brutal it was um one thing after another it takes a long time once the vehicle's put together to actually get it performing the way you want it to perform and we were under immense time pressures a lot had to be done to the sub in order to make it ready for the five beeps expedition it seemed that almost every system had some little thing about it that we had to perfect whether it be the hatch seal or the communications or the variable ballast tubes and these things just had to be tuned like a car let's just say like a car it was running really rough and we had to work out those rough spots and we just didn't have a whole lot of time and so the team was working feverishly to try and fix these issues on the ship with a very tight time frame and we got to the point where things were at a level where i wasn't comfortable diving the submarine solo to 8 000 meters there was quite a bit of doubt surrounding the viability of the project our ability to pull it off you know things had not gone well there was a collective opinion on the ship that the system just would never work in fact i think the term being bandied about was it'll work when pigs fly everybody had basically given up on us and doubted our ability to pull us off everybody except of course the triton team that was out there we knew we we had built a sub that could achieve the objective of diving to the deepest point in each of the five oceans we knew we had a list of things that hadn't worked the way they were supposed to but we were confident in our ability to fix those things to address those deficiencies and to successfully prosecute victor's unprecedented expedition five deeps the team came together in a very strong way and for about 36 hours really applied themselves to the core issues and at one point patrick came up to my room and told me that he thinks that they had the major problems resolved i was a little bit skeptical but they seemed so confident and when i physically tested them submersible it looked like it was okay and so i made the critical decision that i would try for 8 000 meters solo in this submarine that had only just now been rendered fully operational i did an 8 000 meter solo dive and virtually nothing really went wrong with the submarine it was a great dive and that really was i think everyone looking back would say was the real turning point for the five deeps expedition and the overall endeavor was the fact that we had just done a dive to two-thirds of full ocean depth in a brand new prototype submarine and come back safely and that was the real turning point of saying wow i think we're actually going to be able to get this done victor and his team would indeed go on to successfully dive to the deepest point in all five of earth's oceans breaking records and logging numerous scientific discoveries along the way it was a truly historic mission that would forever change the landscape of deep ocean exploration it was all made possible by the team that dared to take on the challenge of building what had been deemed by so many to be impossible i think this i think the secret to being able to do something like this is first of all having the belief that you can you know is to to know that you know we can do this we didn't know how we're gonna do it but we knew we could and and it was a matter of of going in with that attitude we i mean yeah we didn't know what we were going to come up with when when victor first approached us but if if you if you look at something and say you know it can't be done then it can't be done if you don't try and we just had that attitude that that it's got to be done we're sure we can do it we don't know how we're going to do it but we're going to take one step and then we'll take another step and then we'll take another step and the tenacity of this group that did it i'm incredibly proud of it and and what the team achieved it was it was quite amazing actually to when we realized afterwards that we just produced the first submersible ever to dive to challenge deep and then come back still working so all we had to do was charge the batteries and dive again the next day we did that five times triton is uh made up of a group of people that have an unflinching belief in our ability to achieve even the most difficult and seemingly impossible tasks i'm incredibly proud of that and incredibly proud of the group of people that made it possible because it was a whole team of people who collectively together as a group made it possible for victor to to do something that i suppose will go down in history as one of the most remarkable expeditions ever undertaken [Music] you

Channel: Caladan Oceanic

Views: 888,535

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Id: pb5j9oeZCm0

Length: 30min 56sec (1856 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 12 2021