Design and Analysis of Optical Window Encapsulation Structure for Laser Doppler Deep-Sea Hydrothermal Velocity Measurement System

Abstract

The optical window is an essential channel for optical signal transmission and return of a deep-sea hydrothermal velocimetry system. Due to its unique structural design, the stress concentration of the optical window will occur under the action of deep-sea high pressure, resulting in cracks at the corner of the high-pressure surface of the optical window, which leads to the inaccurate convergence of the optical signal. A pressure self-balancing optical window package structure is designed to solve the problem. The stress at the optical window is numerically analyzed, and the forces of self-balancing and nonpressure self-balancing optical windows under the same seawater pressure are compared. The results show that the maximum stress at the stress concentration can be reduced by 53% using the pressure self-balancing method, and the phenomenon of stress concentration can be effectively eliminated. In addition, to verify the feasibility of the design and the accuracy of the numerical calculation results, the optical window and its encapsulation structure were experimentally studied, and the deep-sea performance test experiment was carried out on the “Jiaolong” submersible, which further verified the accuracy of the results.