Faster Than a Speeding Bullet--Underwater!

Good stuff....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDEnhtrjR3U&list=PL0DC4AEB12422A28F

An American businessman was arrested in the 1970's and accused of spying.He was.He was trying to get info on the supercavitating torpedo that Russia had.

The technology is more or less public knowledge now, with just about every country having the ability to make them.However, information about them is harder to get from the net than it used to be.

Like the silent diesel subs that can run for months underwater without surfacing.

They used to have to surface to run the diesels to charge the batteries, but not anymore.They run the engines on Argon and Oxygen.They use seawater to scrub the carbon dioxide and waste gases from the exhaust, and recycle the Argon.They can carry enough liquid oxygen for many months on board.

These are a "poor man's nuclear sub."

Iran supposedly has them.

Getting to be a very dangerous world

'...Like the silent diesel subs that can run for months underwater without surfacing....'

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The very low noise signature of some AIP subs definitely makes the technology important (so important that the US Navy bargained with Sweden to lease one of their AIP subs for a couple years starting in 2005).

I don't think any of the AIP subs can be expected to stay submerged for even a month, much less months, in normal operations though. The longest projections I have seen approach one month.

Argon is inert, and therefore cannot be combusted. Somebody has their details wrong.

That could be why they use it (assuming it's correct). I doubt it's possible to run a disel on pure oxygen as it would burn too hot, so need to dilute it. With an air-breathing diesel you're stuck with nitrogen, but then there is some NOX production. If you have a choice, inert gas better, and argon is the most common, quite a bit of it in the atmosphere, can't remember exact figure, but somewhere round 0.3% I think.

In that case, they would still be running it on diesel fuel and oxygen, the argon being basically incidental.

A small amount of argon is typically used on start up, after which exhaust gas recirculation makes up what is needed.

I haven't heard of recycling of the argon, and I'm not sure why they wouldn't use something like CO₂ or exhaust gas from the last running cycle. Never the less, since a stoikiometric mix of O₂ and fuel would lead to damage, inert gas is injected at start up until the needed gas can be pulled from exhaust.

That ain't it.

Re: Faster Than a Speeding Bullet--Underwater!

Argon was chosen to make the fuel/"air" mixture because it is not absorbed by seawater.The exhaust gases go through a sea-water scrubber,and since the Argon will not be absorbed,it is recycled.The ideal ratio for gasoline engines is around 14.7(air) to 1.(Fuel).

Not sure about diesel,but based on that ratio,with atmospheric oxygen at 21%,then only around 3% pure oxygen would be needed,the rest Argon.

Remember,basically only the oxygen is required for combustion, but pure O2 would melt the engines.

The info I read did state "months" without resurfacing, limited only by the storage space of the O2.The engines only run when required to charge the batteries,and that would depend on duty cycle of the electric propulsion and the requirements of the environmental controls.

Our supercavitating torpedoes look a bit more sophisticated ,with the cavitation nose cones looking a lot like stacked high-voltage insulators.Computers keep the torpedo centered in the bubble while running and steering.If the torpedo escapes the bubble, it will self destruct at that speed.

Which makes me think perhaps a bubble curtain would be a good defense, at least on a stationary target.Problem is in detecting something that travels faster than sonar underwater.

Whoa! Extrapolation gone erroneous!

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3% pure oxygen plus some fuel and the rest argon would be unlikely to ignite.

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Aside from the expense and complication of trying to scrub the exhaust gasses with the exception of argon, the other problem is that argon is not hydrophobic. Argon has no qualms about dissolving in sea water.... why would it?

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When you are calculating your O₂ supply, don't forget that there are people down there operating the sub who also breathe.

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Also, torpedoes, supercavitating or otherwise, do not exceed the speed of sonar (approx 1/2 the speed of sound since the signal needs to make the round trip). Nothing is even getting close to that speed.

When I was a Sonar Technician in the US Navy, sound travel through water was approximately 4800 feet per second (about 3,270 miles per hour) depending on water temperature and salinity at any given location.

No torpedo can outrun that.

I am sure you are right about the speed.I should be more careful about copy and paste information without proper review for feasibility or common sense.

My bad.

The U.S. has pretty much given up on these...they don't serve a great tactical purpose. It's fun to waste tax dollars on, but that's about it.

They work well when they hit their target. You could ask the crew of the Kursk, but then again...

I'll try to get the audio file of a shkval posted up.

Since I started this thread,I have received several mail delivery failure messages and the sources all point to a Russian I/P address.My email account has been hacked.Don't know if something on this site is infected, or if it occurred during my google search of this subject.Has anyone else had this problem?

I have run several scans with different virus programs and all check clean.

I have changed the parameters (including password) on my email account,and hope this will do it.

visiting web sites hosted on Russian servers is never a good idea. You probably picked something up grazing on those sites.