Do you know what the connection is between whales and submarines? Do you know what is the connection between the whale, a huge animal that lives in the ocean, and a submarine, an auxiliary tool invented by humans to carry out underwater operations or combat?
whale
The connection between whales and submarines
Although the whale has a fish in its name, it is actually a mammal, as the world's largest mammal, the whale has the same structure as a fish, the body shows a smooth curve, through the swing of the tail and the huge forelimb row to swim, so the whale can live in the ocean like other fish.
But do you know how much the whales played in the research and modification of submarines? In fact, in nature, many animal characteristics can be applied to weapons and equipment, which is what we call bionics, take the simplest example, the helicopter is very much like a dragonfly, or imitate the appearance of bats or birds to transform the drone, use it for listening.
Most of the weapons and equipment are developed on the basis of biomimicry, such as the submarine we are talking about now, the streamlined body is made according to the whale, and the submarine is studied by studying the characteristics of the whale floating and diving.
whale
Whales are mammals and cannot stay in the sea for a long time, so they will float up to the surface of the sea every once in a while to breathe, and then dive again, and scientists use this principle to make submarines float and dive freely.
Whales also have a dorsal fin, according to the principle of this dorsal fin, researchers have thickened this part of the submarine, and studied the command platform enclosure, which is a very hard part of the submarine, when the submarine sails under the Arctic Ocean, it can directly break through the ice layer more than ten meters thick.
Mainland researchers also use the call of the sperm whale as the language information of the communication system, by imitating the original sound of the sperm whale to construct new communication language signals, underwater covert communication, this technology is now only a very small number of military powers can do. When the enemy is confronted with such a communication signal, it is impossible to determine whether it is a sperm whale or a submarine.
submarine
Although submarines were built using the habits and characteristics of whales, whales can dive thousands of meters with only their flesh, while steel-cast submarines cannot do it.
Whales can dive for miles, but submarines can't
Why is the submarine of "steel and iron bone" diving deeper than that of whales? Whales, as the world's largest mammals, can live in the water like ordinary fish, and can even dive into the depths of the ocean.
We all know that the deeper the depth of the water, the greater the pressure, and the submarines developed by humans have no way to face the pressure in the sea, and can only be squashed with the pressure, so why are whales with only flesh stronger than submarines with steel and iron bones? How do whales withstand the strength of water pressure thousands of meters deep?
whale
Whales can withstand the water pressure because of natural evolution, and the whale's current body structure is related, compared to the submarine piece by piece of iron plate can not be easily deformed, the whale's body is actually relatively soft, its bones such as the spine, sternum and other places of the connection is actually very loose, the whale's entire chest cavity is also very soft.
As the whale dives, the pressure becomes stronger and stronger, its chest and lungs will slowly contract, when a certain pressure is reached, the lungs will completely contract, the gas exchange will not occur again, and oxygen will enter the blood to balance the internal pressure. When the whale begins to float gradually, the oxygen is separated and the pressure inside the body drops.
Through this method of balancing the pressure inside and outside the body, we can ensure that we will not be squashed by the pressure of the water in the depths.
submarine
The submarine is only a relatively special ship, it needs to be controlled by people, carrying people inside the body, the personnel on the submarine want to work and survive normally, it is necessary to ensure that the internal pressure of the submarine is close to the standard atmospheric pressure.
When the submarine dives, if the pressure from the outside is too different from the pressure inside the submarine, it will cause the pressure inside and outside the submarine to be unbalanced, and it will be squashed when it reaches the limit of the submarine.
Ordinary submarines generally dive to five hundred meters is enough to choke, let alone dive below a kilometer, so the submarine with its steel body is still no match for whales that rely only on the flesh.
Although it is difficult for other submarines to dive below a kilometer, this does not mean that the submarines of the mainland cannot do it, do you know how powerful the submarines on the mainland are now?
submarine
Continental submarines are powerful
Do you know how powerful the continent's submarines are already? We all know that the deeper the sea pressure will be greater, five hundred meters deep, it has reached 51 pa, most of the submarines have been unable to withstand, when it reaches a thousand meters, only some attack submarines can move freely.
When the depth reaches 1,500 meters, basically only some deep submersibles used for scientific research can reach, so the deeper the submarine in the sea, the less difficult it is to reach, and every time it breaks through a certain distance, it is a great test and a milestone breakthrough in the history of scientific research. The depth that other submarines cannot reach does not mean that submarines on the mainland cannot do it.
Dragon
The Jiaolong, a deep-sea manned submersible developed and designed by the mainland itself, is 8.2 meters long, three meters wide and 3.4 meters high, and the maximum load can reach 240 kilograms.
In the eastern Pacific Ocean, it successfully dived 5188 meters, in June 2012, the depth of diving on the seabed reached 7020 meters, and a month later in the same year, the diving depth was increased again in the Experimental Sea Area of the Mariana Trench to 7062 meters, directly creating a record for the highest depth of diving by the world's manned submersibles.
Jiaolong is really the best in the world, and its appearance not only makes us proud, but also makes us understand that the dream of catching turtles in the last nine days of the moon and catching turtles in the next five oceans has been realized by us humans.
The situation in the sea is ever-changing, and even if the submarine has a body of steel, it can still be easily destroyed in the face of the huge ocean.
Dragon
But we now have submarines that can dive more than 7,000 meters, and I believe that as we continue to explore the ocean, with the continuous development of human technology, it will not take too long for the diving depth of nuclear submarines to rise to another height.