Quote:
Originally Posted by LGN1
@UltimaGecko:
Thanks for the long and detailed comment  In addition to the documents you mentioned I also read the original handbook of the VIIC. In the section dealing with the CO2... they use a volume of 400 m^3 air in the VIIC and an average consumption of 30l/h per each crew member. Where did you get the 525 m^3 for the VII from? One problem is that I never found a source giving the air volume of the II and IX  |
My internal volumes are probably a bit off (that's why I went with calling them 'nebulous' numbers). I had to work with random internet sources and displacement.
But using the 400 cubic meters (which I would trust more than my 525 (and my IX is probably a bit high as well) you've got 22.4kg of breathable oxygen, which translate to about 633 crew hours of oxygen (e.g. with 42 crew about 15 hours per person - disregarding engine burn and other waste). That'd get you faster CO2 buildup too (but I had already put a buffer of about 1 hour on my calculation, so it's still around 2 hours of 'renewable' CO2 removal.
The other values are based on the actual volume or mass of gas needed, so they won't be affected by a volume change (e.g. 50L of O2 will still get you the same amount of oxygen).
Initially submerged displacement seems like it would work since displacement is basically a measure of the weight of a given volume of seawater. But this would be incredibly dubious (also why I came out with 525 cubic meters). The problem is that much of the internal space is taken by fuel and equipment and steel. In order to get a close approximation of the internal airspace, you would need to know the volume of space taken up by steel, machinery, food, fuel and such. Which basically gets you right back to square one.
I probably wouldn't recommend comparing the ship to an American ship either. Slight differences in internal space may greatly affect the internal space.