A steam powered submarine: the IctÃneo
Few Victorian inventions have the grace and charm of the IctÃneo, the series of two wooden submarines built by NarcÃs Monturiol i Estarrol in the second half of the nineteenth century.
Unlike some of the better known early submarines from his contemporaries in Germany, France and the United States, the Catalan inventor managed to build submarines that operated flawlessly.
The IctÃneo II was the first combustion engine driven submarine ever, pioneering concepts that were only rivalled in the 1940s. Sadly, both submarines were eventually scrapped and Monturiol died penniless and forgotten.
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The thinking at the time was that it was almost impossible to run a steam engine underwater because it would use up all the oxygen and convert the inside of the ship into an oven. To overcome this, Monturiol invented a chemical furnace based on a reaction between potassium chlorate, zinc and manganese dioxide - a process that produced enough heat to boil water to run the steam engine. To complement this ingenuity, the reaction gave off oxygen as a by-product.
Monturiol had successfully resolved the two basic obstacles presented to submarine inventors: air supply and mechanical power. In fact, he devised an early form of anaerobic (air-independent) propulsion only to be repeated in the 1940s with the Walter turbine in Germany, and finally with the first atomic submarine, the USS Nautilus.
The IctÃneo II was the first of its kind providing its own oxygen, without surfacing regularly or using a snorkel, as seen on the Nautilus. Perplexing is the reality that Monturiol, never having patented his ideas, is absent in many maritime records of the progression of submarines.
More: http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2008/08/submarines-1.html
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