Question My Senior Design Project

[Cthippo]

I'm not an Mechanical engineer, but tanks fall over on boats ALL-THE-TIME when divers don't secure them. My suggestion would be to design an automatic tank "bungie' system that secures the tank when you are not actively touching your tank with your body. If any portion of your body is not actively putting 'holding" pressure on your tank to hold it secure, then it needs an automatic hands free securing mechanism. I don't know how to do this, I just know that falling tanks is a frequent "mechanical" problem in scuba diving on boats. Best of luck on your project !!

One of the Fire Departments I worked for had a claw type SCBA retainer built into the seats. Most fire apparatus use a webbing system with latch and you have to find and pull a ripcord before the SCBA will release from the seat, and then hope the webbing, which is trapped between your body and the pack, doesn't get stuck. This had a mechanism that grabbed the top of the pack and allowed it to be rotated into place and retained with no further manipulation. It was a pretty great systwm and an adaptation to SCUBA would be great.

 

[stiebs]

I have a couple of purely mechanical, highly innovative ideas regarding tanks which keep constant buoyancy while emptying, or can even adjust buoyancy for compensating suit compression, making a BCD entirely superfluous.
Being patentable ideas, I cannot discuss them publicly.
If you are interested, write me an Email to farina@unipr.it .
But be prepared to sign an NDA, because I am a professor at the Mech. Engineering dept.(DISTI) of the University of Parma, so I must operate respecting the Italian law (which was updated just 4 months ago, with new strict rules about IP).

Sounds to me like you just described the Avelo system

 

[Angelo Farina]

Sounds to me like you just described the Avelo system

No, my system is entirely mechanical.
No electricity involved and no control required from the diver. The tank simply adjusts itself, allowing to dive in the vintage mode, just strap the tank on your shoulders, no BCD, Jacket, wing, etc.
Very streamlined and pleasant to dive in such a vintage setup. This was as I started diving, in 1975, and I see many divers still diving this way now.
At the time the problem was that the tank became lighter at the end of the dive, and the wet suit did compress at depth, causing strong buoyancy variations, which the diver had to compensate only using fins and lungs.
My self-adjusting tank keeps the buoyancy constant, either when emptying and with depth... With no user action!
There are other advantages involved, regarding inspection, maintenance, and pressure testing, but, as said, I cannot discuss them here, or disclose the details, as the system is fully patentable, but I did not apply for it yet.