Figuring out internal submarine structure from exterior images - Type 09I submarine

[totoro]

Hopefully there are some people experienced enough around these parts who could provide their insight. Ideally, people with actual experience in submarine construction would know this best, but hey, every little bit helps.

So below is a series of photos of Type 09I submarine. Best photos I could find, but anyone is free to add more photos. The task is to try and ascertain the more-or-less exact position of ballast tanks all along the pressure hull and all around the pressure hull. The idea is to use the photos alone and not rely on any texts.






This last image is perhaps the most helpful, being somewhat a frontal shot, revealing more than half the hull. Still, without actual experience in submarine design, it's hard to analyze it properly for me. So if anyone can help, please do so. For example, is the position of the ballast tanks more like the schematic A, B or C? (yellow is the position of the pressure hull) Or something else entirely?

 

[cattalonX]

 

[Scott Kenny]

Pardon the years-late reply.

The best picture to determine ballast tank position from external images only would be one of most of the top, to show where the ballast tank vents are.

In general, the ballast tanks of a double-hulled submarine are best pictured by option C. Tanks completely surrounding the pressure hull. That said, the forward ballast tanks include the very front of the ship, with sonar and the torpedo tubes outside the pressure hull.

A single-hulled submarine, typical of US designs, would have the main ballast tanks at each end of the hull. Trim tanks are inside the pressure hull, to move water around to keep the ship on a level keel.

 

[JJMM]

A submarine is often double hull construction, consisting of : a thick, cylindrical pressure hull with watertight doors and bulkheads, which houses all the technical equipment, weaponry, and crew accomodation. Its thickness ranges from 16 to 35 mm. It also has an outer, streamlined hull that is in constant communication with the sea. This outer hull is 5 to 10 mm thick and contains the ballasts and fuel bunkers.
Then "B" profiles from Totoro are more realist than others.
Please see my French ship Daphne submamrine drawings.

 

[DWG]

A submarine is always double hull construction

Ah, no. There are single, one and a half and double-hulled designs, plus 'double hull' variations with one, two, or three pressure hulls inside the outer hull.

 

[Scott Kenny]

A submarine is always double hull construction,

US subs haven't been double hulled since the Albacore.

 

[JJMM]

In my mind, I was thinking about recent vessels or these models above, and even though the Narval by Maxime Laubeuf in France in 1899 was one of the first double-hulled submarines, there were still quite a few single-hulled ones.
I should have said "often" and not "always," my apologies for that slip-up...