Nuclear-Powered submarines are submarines that have an onboard nuclear reactor to generate power. This gives them effectively unlimited energy, and their endurance is limited only by food and air purification. Nuclear submarines can travel at faster submerged speeds as they don’t need to conserve fuel for range and endurance. Therefore they can handle the greater power demands. They may have up to 5-10 times the propulsion power of a diesel-electric boat.
The energy in the reactor is is millions of times the energy of conventional boats. They also have all of this energy available for submerged operations. Due to this vast difference, the designs of the submarines are vastly different. Nuclear submarines are able to conduct their transits near their peak power. Due to the need to keep reactor power levels constant, the design of nuclear submarines depends on dispersing large amounts of excess power.
The requirement for dissipating energy turns the propulsion inefficiency of the pump jet an advantage, as low-speed running drastically decreases the power required. Hotel loads, and water pumping are used to dissipate excess power from the reactor. This excess energy makes power-hungry combat systems an advantage as well. There is a decreased safety need for batteries as there would be almost no reason to operate on batteries alone besides in an extreme emergency allowing for a 50% reduction in battery weight. The buoyancy reserve of a nuclear submarine is around 20-35% of the submerged displacement.[^5]
[[USS Nautilus SSN-571]]
[[AIP vs Nuclear Submarines]]
[[Pump Jet]] – used on nuclear submarines
[[Submarine Speed]] – nuclear submarines can handle the higher power demands of faster submerged speeds
Submarine Reactors
Neutron Poison – xenon poisoning affects power design for nuclear submarines
Hotel Loads – used to dissipate heat from the reactor
[[Integral Circuit Reactor]] – type used for modern naval reactors
[[British Navy]] – operates nuclear submarines
[[French Navy]] – operates nuclear submarines
[[Chinese Navy]] – also operates nuclear submarines
[[Double Hull Design]] – all first generation nuclear submarines have a double hull design
Nuclear Submarine Model
[[Dreadnought]] – UK’s first nuclear-powered submarine
[[Los-Angeles Class Submarine]]
Sources
- [1] H I Sutton, Apex Predators: AIP Submarines Explained by Covert Shores (Air Independent Propulsion), (Jul. 30, 2021). Accessed: Nov. 28, 2022. [Online Video]. Available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2QS_aEsVuw
- [2] A. Morrison, “A comparison of pumpjets and propellers for non-nuclear submarine propulsion”.
- [3] Air-independent-Propulsion
- [4] M. Ragheb, “Nuclear Naval Propulsion,” in Nuclear Power – Deployment, Operation and Sustainability, P. Tsvetkov, Ed., InTech, 2011. doi: 10.5772/19007.
- [5] S. Høibråten et al., ENVIRONMENTAL RISK ASSESSMENT FOR NON-DEFUELLED, DECOMMISSIONED NUCLEAR SUBMARINES. 2007. doi: 10.13140/RG.2.1.1660.7124.
Backlinks
[[Buoyancy]]
[[Diesel-Electric Submarines]]
[[Efficiency Advantages of Pump Jets]]
[[FPGA]]
[[Hardware In The Loop]]
[[Naval Reactor Fuel]]
[[Submarine Speed]]