Quickest Way to Regulate Submarine Ballast?

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making a U-boat and am wondering whats the fastest way to fill/drain ballast tanks.

[Moose!]

I have the same issue

[fixius01]

Originally posted by #000fff spacebar:

making a U-boat and am wondering whats the fastest way to fill/drain ballast tanks.

air

[superosh]

In my sub I have a closed loop-air cycle:
-before start, I accumulate/pump air until max into a big gas-tank.
-whenever I "press-out" ballast (using big pumps), I also use the accumulated air and "let it go(valve)" into the ballast tank.
I made sure that my ballast tank only has a water-out (filter), So I don't loose the air, which then can be pumped back into the storage-tank, for later use.
Works (allmost) like a charm, even with automated PID-based static depth hold.

[ZedNova]

I've had good success by using doors to fill the ballast tanks, and compressed air to evacuate the tanks.

When diving, i open bottom, side, and top doors (to allow the air to escape)
When evacuating the tanks, i only open the bottom doors.

Ideally, you want your submarine to be as close to neutrally buoyant when the ballast tanks are completely full, and balanced (not tilting too far forward or back)
Using thrust and dive planes to maintain depth is the easiest way to go.

[Nitty_Gritty1]

ZedNova suggested one of the most effective ideas I have found so far. I am not sure how effective the side doors are, as I have not experimented with them myself.

[jamespfp]

I've been using a system of small pumps to move ballast between tanks to very good effect, although it will be limited by the differences in pressure between them. With that being said, those pumps don't need a toggle button; I only need to use a Push and Hold button for a few seconds to put the same "Up Bubble" pressure inside both.

I'm experimenting with a quite non-efficient submarine build just to see how long it takes to fill 2 pretty large ballast tanks (25,000-28,000 units of volume) without releasing any of the air or filling some other tank/container with compressed air. At present, I'm getting fairly good results by adding directional vents with valves and letting the air inside the system flow to where the pressure is lowest. Also, it has seemed to me on more than one occasion (ie. with other people's submarine builds) that the deeper your pump intakes are the better the water pressure and air pressure will be. If its possible for you to coax the submarine to run "decks awash" or even completely submerged to 5-8 meters depth, intake pumps which were slow on the surface start to become more efficient.

Yes, it's a pain to have to wait for 'em to fill up in a slow and steady way, it's also easier to avoid overfilling them and to literally trim out any differences so that the combined "bubble" isn't too far forward or aft.

Test Sub's Ballast Specs:

Forward Tank (28,000 volume), 1 Large Intake Pump + 1 Large Outflow Pump for Water, 2 Small Pumps Port and Starboard to transfer to Aft Tank.
Aft Tank (25,000 volume), 1 Large Intake + 1 Large Outflow + 2 small pumps for transferring Forward.
"Inboard" (crew compartment) is approximately 100,000 units of volume, which includes a "safety margin" Bilge compartment that is approximately 14,000 units of volume. The Bilge has transfer loops of its own connected Forward and Aft (also using small pumps), and 1 large pump to drain it to the ocean.
Airlock (10,000 volume) with 1 large pump for intake and another for outflow and a couple of valves linking the "air gap" on the top of the airlock to the aft ballast tank.

The loops which are still buggy are the ones connected to the Bilge. For best results, it is necessary to use some of the air pressure inside either the Forward or Aft ballast tank (while submerged) or to run at or near the surface so that the "Inboard" crew compartment can equalise itself with the outside air pressure. [edit] I could probably use a smaller cylinder of compressed air for draining the ballast as a compromise.