3 ms·
I doubt she has a nuclear plant, actually; there's a Raytheon paper [1] which spends some time talking about the need for fuel efficiency to maximize operation
by aaronem 13y ago
I doubt she has a nuclear plant, actually; there's a Raytheon paper [1] which spends some time talking about the need for fuel efficiency to maximize operational availability, which isn't often a concern for nuclear-powered ships whose rate of fuel "burn" is constant and whose refueling intervals are best measured in years.
[1] https://www.navalengineers.org/SiteCollectionDocuments/2010%20Proceedings%20Documents/EMTS%202010%20Proceedings/Papers/Thursday/EMTS10_2_21.pdf https://www.navalengineers.org/SiteCollectionDocuments/2010%...
- jdubs 13y ago2 Rolls-Royce Marine Trent-30 gas turbines driving Curtiss-Wright generators[5] and emergency diesel generators, 78 MW (105,000 shp); 2 propellers driven by electric motors shitty citation - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zumwalt-class_destroyer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zumwalt-class_destroyer
- jellicle 13y agoEverything in the U.S. fleet except the large aircraft carriers and the submarines burns crappy low-grade diesel fuel. For the submarines, there are major advantages to not having oxygen-requiring engines, and for the aircraft carriers, they want to carry a lot of fuel for aircraft, not themselves. On the other hand nuclear reactors are too expensive to merit putting in ships which don't require them.
- cobrausn 13y agoThat is part of it. The other part is that for smaller ships, you end up having over half the ship manned by sailors who can handle the engine room and reactor. The Navy has enough trouble finding and keeping sailors for their nuclear power program, so they tend to restrict how they use them, otherwise they might end up in the unfortunate situation of needing to allow less qualified candidates through nuclear power school just to keep the fleet running.