Volume 8: The War of the Four Directions Chapter 123: The Tomorrow of Nuclear Submarines

Chapter 123: The nuclear submarine's tomorrow

Before the Second Indian Ocean War broke out, the Chinese Navy was building the Type 099 attack nuclear submarine.

In terms of xng energy, the 099 type completely surpassed the "Virginia" class, and in some aspects it surpassed the "Little Rock" class. It is the first attack nuclear submarine of the Chinese Navy that can compete with the latest US nuclear submarines, but there is still a big gap compared to the "Portland" class that has already started construction.

At that time, the Navy planned to build sixteen ships in two batches, which would all replace the 095 type.

As a result, due to the impact of the fully electric submarine project, only eight Type 099 built, all of which were put into service in 2046. In order to maintain the size of the nuclear submarine force, the eight Type 095 returned to the shipyard in 2046 and carried out the third modernization improvement after service, extending the service life to after 2055. This is not to maintain the combat effectiveness of the attack nuclear submarine force, but to leave behind experienced officers and soldiers. It should be not to cultivate a group of officers and soldiers who attack nuclear submarines.

By 2046, the Navy had found the right direction to attack nuclear submarines.

To put it indirectly, it is to replace the fission reactor with a controllable fusion reactor, which increases the XNG energy of the power system by more than ten times, and on this basis, it is driven to attack nuclear submarines with more advanced XNG energy. However, during the specific implementation, the Navy encountered insurmountable obstacles.

Submarines are not surface warships, and the power of the electronic equipment they are equipped with will not be much larger, nor can they use weapons systems that require a lot of electricity. Even for a long time in the future, torpedoes will still be the main weapon of submarines, so submarines will not consume power.

The problem is that with a strong power system, you have to swing out powerful power, and an equally powerful propulsion system is needed.

This is the biggest problem.

As early as when the C3 aircraft carrier was conceived, the Chinese Navy proved a problem through pool tests, that is, any existing propulsion equipment will produce huge noise when the submarine's submarine reaches 45 knots, causing the submarine to lose its concealment.

At that time, this test mainly provided a basis for the degree standards of C3 aircraft carriers.

To put it indirectly, the C3 level sets the maximum aviation to forty-five sections, which is not only tactical demand, but also related to the fleet's anti-submarine.

The problem is that Chinese submarines cannot avoid this problem.

By the time the Second Indian Ocean War broke out, the Chinese Navy had realized that it would no longer work to improve submarine navigation by simply increasing the power system power. In a sense, this is also one of the main reasons why the Chinese Navy began to pay attention to fully electric submarines and reduce the status of attack nuclear submarines. You should know that as long as there is no excessive requirement for high sustained navigation capabilities, all electric submarines can completely replace attack nuclear submarines.

However, there are the same problems with all-electric submarines.

At that time, the Navy came to the conclusion through computer imitation that when using pump propellers, the noise of the submarine at forty-five knots was as high as 160.

What is this concept?

The US military underwater monitoring system located in Guam can feel that no Chinese submarine that comes out of Naha Port can move under such a large amount of noise. What's more serious is that the huge noise also greatly reduces the submarine's own detection ability, which is equivalent to becoming a deaf person.

It is obvious that the Navy needs a quieter propulsion system.

At that time, breakthroughs had been made in this area, namely, magnetofluid propulsion systems.

Theoretically, the magnetofluid propulsion system has no moving parts, so it will not generate air noise, which can reduce the noise of the propulsion system to zero. Although there is a certain gap between reality and theory, the mute effect of the magnetofluid propulsion system is very obvious after the submarine has sailed for thirty-five junctions. Before 2045, theoretical research by the Chinese Navy showed that the magnetofluid propulsion system can reduce the noise of the submarine within 45 junctions to less than 110 ban. If other noise reduction measures are assisted, such as the use of bionic sound absolute tiles to optimize the fluid structure of the submarine, it is sufficient to reduce the noise intensity of the submarine to less than 100 decibels.

It can be said that less than one hundred decibels is the minimum requirement.

In this way, we can only focus on magnetofluid propulsion technology.

The problem is that by 2045, the energy utilization efficiency of several test equipment of the Chinese Navy was only a pitiful one percent.

In other words, at that time, the magnetofluid propulsion system could only convert one percent of the energy into propulsion force.

What is this concept?

Theoretically, to add an attack nuclear submarine with an underwater displacement of 10,000 tons to 45 knots and maintain this degree of navigation, the output power of the propulsion system needs to reach at least 15,000 kilowatts, that is, 15 megawatts, and therefore the power system needs at least 1,500 megawatts of output power.

There is no doubt that this is almost impossible, because the output power of the two reactors of the "Tarzan" class aircraft carrier is only more than 1,000 megawatts. With the technology at that time, it was impossible to install two JH-44 reactors on a 10,000-ton attack nuclear submarine.

Theoretically speaking, at least the energy conversion efficiency of the magnetofluid propulsion system must be increased to 10% before it can be of practical value.

To this end, the Navy has invested huge research and development funds in magnetofluid propulsion technology.

It can be said that whether this technology can be mature is indirectly related to the fate of attacking nuclear submarines.

At that time, not only the Chinese Navy but also the US Navy were conducting in-depth research in this field, because everyone knows that this is a technical difficulty that must be overcome.

Fortunately, technological progress is always expected.

By 2047, the energy conversion efficiency of the magnetofluid propulsion system invested and developed by the Chinese Navy exceeded 5%, and it had already dealt with major technical difficulties. According to the intelligence provided by the Military Intelligence Agency, the US Navy also made serious breakthroughs in research in this field, but the United States did not do a complete job in miniaturization of controllable fusion reactors, so the progress of research in related fields is far inferior to China. Not to mention, the next-generation aircraft carrier planned by the United States still uses fission reactors, and relying on previous technical accumulation, the output power of the fission reactors has been increased to 200 megawatts, which can increase the maximum aviation of the next-generation aircraft carrier to about 45 knots with the installation of four reactors. If the United States has made serious breakthroughs in miniaturization of fusion reactors, there is no reason to continue to use fission reactors, because the power density of the fusion reactor is more than ten times higher than that of the fission reactor.

Affected by this, at the end of 2047, the Navy proposed a new generation of attack nuclear submarines.

According to the requirements of the Navy, the new generation of attack nuclear submarines will adopt magnetofluid propulsion systems and controllable fusion reactors, with a maximum submarine degree that must not be less than forty-five knots, and the overall noise intensity when sailing at forty knots shall not exceed one hundred decibels, and has strong continuous combat capabilities.

It can be said that this requirement is not low.

Even if the problems of power systems and propulsion systems are dealt with, severe breakthroughs are needed in other fields, such as developing a bionic sound-absorbing tiles that can better xng can reduce the fluid resistance coefficient of the submarine by more than 30%, so that fluid noise can be controlled within the requirements of the navy. In addition, active noise reduction must also be considered, otherwise it will be difficult to reduce the noise intensity to less than 100 decibels.

In fact, these are all minor issues.

At that time, the most serious problem was to promote the system's heat dissipation.

You should know that even if the energy conversion efficiency of the magnetofluid propulsion system reaches 10%, it means that 90% of the energy will be converted into internal energy. If the output power of the propulsion system is 15,000 kW, it means that 135,000 kW is heating the submarine. Submarine heat dissipation is not a big problem, sea water is the best heat dissipation medium. The problem is that such a large amount of heat is difficult to dissipate immediately, and it is easy to burn the propulsion system and power system. Moreover, heating the surrounding seawater will inevitably weaken the submarine's concealment.

It can be said that if you can't handle the heat dissipation problem, everything will be useless.

The problem is that conservative cooling methods simply don't work, because it all means indirectly releasing heat into the sea water around the submarine.

The only feasible way is to use the heat of the thruster.

At that time, what Chinese engineers first thought of was to set up a thermistor on the magnetofluid thruster to convert the internal energy into electric energy again to supply energy to the power-consuming equipment on the submarine. However, most of the time the submarine consumes very limited electricity, so this method simply does not work.

Finally, the engineer came up with a solution, which was to recycle the internal energy.

To put it simply, it is to first convert the internal energy into electrical energy through the thermistor electrode to drive the thruster, thus achieving the purpose of repeated use.

More importantly, this can greatly improve the energy conversion efficiency of the magnetofluid thruster.

In 2048, the Chinese Navy made the first magnetofluid thruster with an energy conversion efficiency of over 10%, and increased the efficiency to 13% by the end of that year. At that time, both the engineers and the Navy were optimistic, believing that they were fully capable of increasing the energy conversion efficiency to 30%.

If this is true, the prospect of attacking nuclear submarines will be very optimistic.

You should know that the energy conversion efficiency of most pumps and thrusters is only more than 30%.

If the magnetofluid thruster can reach this level, a small fusion nuclear reactor can be used, and even a fuel cell may be used.

Unfortunately, by the end of 2049, the energy conversion efficiency of the magnetofluid propulsion system was only 15%.

After the engineer modified the mathematical model, he realized a very pessimistic result, that is, the internal energy reuse system has a limit value, which can increase the energy conversion efficiency of the magnetofluid propulsion system to 18%, but in fact it is very good to reach 15%.

In fact, this is not bad news, because the basic requirement of the Navy is to reach 10%.
Chapter completed!