Fig. 1: Image of Submarines
History of inventions does not have a more interesting chapter than that of submarines. Sailing under ocean’s waves was an allure for all the heroes that led to making of this masterpiece.
In 1830s and 40s, various French inventors including Petit Villeroi, Payerne, DeMontgery hadprovided submersible concepts and some of them were actually built too. But only after French Navy became keen in the design offered by naval constructor Charles Brun and Captain Bourgeois, notable progress was made in these wonder machines.
In 1859, Brun and Bourgeois started putting in their efforts on Le Plongeur, which was earliest submarine, independent of human power for propulsion. Motorized by reciprocating engine, compelled by the stored compressed air, this 14 foot could manage standard 5 knots submerged. She was incredible sight with displacement of around 420 tons. This was largest submarine to make a debut before 20th century. The giant size of this submarine was due to storage space required for huge bottles with compressed air. She was also the first ever to utilize compressed air for empting the ballast tanks.
But soon after the launch in 1863, imperfections in Le Plongeur came to the surface. The machine suffered from insufficient stability because of her flatness and length. The system of pistons and pipes used from one end to another end for longitudinal equilibrium control worked slowly. The submarine would tumble downwards at the steep angles and correcting gears would come to action. It also took breaks for surface, where other correction processes would start all over again. After working on it for three years without any notable improvements, experiments on Le Plongeur were abandoned.