If we can *easily construct pressure vessels that can contain pressure far greater than that of the deep sea internally (high pressure inside, low pressure outside), what are the challenges that prevent us from making a vessel that can withstand deep sea pressure externally while maintaining low pressure internally?
In: Engineering
We have vessels that do exactly that. The Trieste that was the first vessel to dive down to Challenger Deep was a pressurised vessel, i.e. the crew compartment was low pressure versus the insane pressure on the outside at the bottom of the ocean.
It’s just that, this is not easily done (nor is it easy the other way around), when talking about the kind of pressure you get at such depths. Every 10 meters you descend gives an extra pressure of 1 atmosphere, so the 10km or so that the ocean is deep there means you get about 1000 atmosphere of pressure.
Typical pressures in say gas containers we use on the surface isn’t really near that, typically topping out at about 400 atmosphere. So not only are they withstanding less than half the pressure, they’re also not big enough to contain a human.
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