The two closures on either side of the tube take advantage of the already present positive pressure to compress a gasket that seals the inside of the chamber.
An actual scale lateral view of the chamber.
The current design has a cylindrical functional space of 8 inches and 2 inches in radius. I will look in the calculating what wall thickness is needed for the tube for a given depth, and at what depth we can expect to see structural failure given whatever wall thickness we decide on.
The 3/8 inch thickness of both of the end plates is in part because I want to be able to secure things to them by tapping partially through without breaking the seal to the outside. I want to include four threaded rods placed in a square pattern and circumscribed by the circle of the inside of the tube. This will allow for easy mounting of electronics at any depth within the tube.
Next, I want to create frontal views of both the gaskets and the two endplates. Hopefully, we will be able to cut the gasket material using some sort of laser cutting device. Perhaps the laser cam at the undergraduate design lab? We will have to see about this after meeting hopefully sometime early next week.