Interesting piece just in the news
concerning high speed transport subs, see below.
Happy New Year!
Jay
Jay K. Jeffries
Andros Is., Bahamas
Natura nihil fit in
frustra
— Nature does nothing in vain
Can a
sub go 115 mph?
A
super fast submarine could be a reality if research by Northrop Grumman’s
Electronic Systems pans out.
By Peter Dujardin
Daily Press
December 27, 2006, 11:05 AM EST
A Northrop Grumman division in Maryland
is seeking to develop a technology designed to propel small submarines and
other manned submersibles up to 115 mph.
Northrop Grumman Electronic Systems, a sister company of the Newport News shipyard, won a $46 million
contract from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, to
develop what's being dubbed the "Underwater Express" to move both
people and specialty cargo.
The speed that's envisioned -- 100 knots, or about 115 mph -- is four times the
advertised speed of typical Navy submarines now in the fleet.
"If you can move it at 100 knots in a stable fashion, it would transform
logistics," said Paul Cabellon, a Northrop spokesman. "It's like
going from propeller planes to jet engines. It's that much of a jump in
technology to get that to work."
Aside from Northrop Grumman, DARPA also tapped General Dynamics Electric Boat
on a competing $37 million effort to develop an alternative underwater vehicle
under the same initiative.
"They'll downselect at some point to one," said Bob Hamilton, an
Electric Boat spokesman. The company that's chosen will build a working
quarter-scale or half scale version of the submersible.
The project is designed to use what's called "supercavitation." That
is, when an underwater object moves fast enough, a pocket of air forms between
the hull and the water. That reduces drag on the vessel and increases its speed
even more.
Or, as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency worded it in a recent
budget request to Congress: "Supercavitation places the vehicle inside a
cavity where vapor replaces the water, and viscosity is reduced by orders of
magnitude, thus reducing the power requirement dramatically."
That is, there's far less drag cutting through the air than cutting through the
water. The supercavitation technology, Cabellon said, is not new. In fact, the
Russians used it in the 1960s to design an underwater torpedo that can cut
through the water more quickly than most torpedoes.
But the new technology, if developed, would go well beyond that, particularly
with more advanced steering and guidance capabilities.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency said it plans to operate the
vessel close to the surface and pump additional air from the vessel into the
cavity -- both steps designed to make it operate even more efficiently.
Only about 10 people are now working full time on the project for Northrop,
though that could ramp up as the project gets going. Northrop Grumman Newport
News, a builder of nuclear powered submarines, is so far not participating in
the project.
Northrop Grumman Electronic Systems fared poorly in its last submarine building
project, the Advanced Seal Delivery System, or ASDS. The U.S. Special
Operations Command canceled the program after delays, overruns and malfunctions
in the first vessel.
Aside from General Dynamics, based in Falls Church,
and Northrop's Electronic Systems division, based in Annapolis, Md.,
other team members will be included, too.
Pennsylvania State
University will participate in the
project, as will the University of Minnesota, the University
of Maryland, the Navy's Naval Undersea
Warfare Center,
in Newport, RI,
and BBN Technologies, of Cambridge,
Mass.
In the first phase of the contract, to run until late 2007 and worth $5.4
million to Northrop, the team is set to demonstrate the feasibility of the
technology and produce a conceptual design.
Then, if all goes well, there are two 15-month optional phases.
In the first option, worth $17 million to Northrop, the team would establish the
detailed design for the underwater. In the third option, worth $23.4 million to
Northrop, the team would actually build a demonstration vehicle that could
operate at 100 knots for up to 10 minutes.