China tests radical magnetic propulsion system that could make nuclear submarines almost silent

Dear ATS Readers, Writers,

This is coming out of a Tom Clancy novel????

China has developed a new magnetic propulsion motor that could make nuclear submarines far stealthier, state media have claimed.
According to a new report, the China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation (CSIC) has tested the country’s first permanent system of this kind, paving the way for quieter and more elusive high-speed vessels.
The new magnetic drive, if successful, could bring the Chinese navy more on par with the US and other Western naval forces.

China tests radical magnetic propulsion system that could make nuclear submarines almost silent




In the book, I think it was called caterpillar drive...

Anyhow, interesting development..

Pravdaseeker

pravda, scary stuff if they are indeed in the testing stage of development for this.

Our boomers are pretty darn effective, and a big part of the effectiveness is the super-quiet nature of nuclear power generation (vs diesel). I am sure this would be a game changer in regard to the countermeasures we deploy for detecting submarines.

Thanks for the share

Dear ATS Readers, Writers,

Hi JBurns, yeah, that is what I was thinking, if this is an accurate news story, then this probably has the US Navy wondering WTF...do we do now?

The Navy boys might have some tech stashed away somewhere to deal with this.. we don't know.

If it comes to a real war with China someday, we better hope the Navy has some serious countermeasures lined up.

Pravdaseeker


a reply to: JBurns

originally posted by: pravdaseeker
Dear ATS Readers, Writers,

This is coming out of a Tom Clancy novel????

China has developed a new magnetic propulsion motor that could make nuclear submarines far stealthier, state media have claimed.
According to a new report, the China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation (CSIC) has tested the country’s first permanent system of this kind, paving the way for quieter and more elusive high-speed vessels.
The new magnetic drive, if successful, could bring the Chinese navy more on par with the US and other Western naval forces.

China tests radical magnetic propulsion system that could make nuclear submarines almost silent




In the book, I think it was called caterpillar drive...

Anyhow, interesting development..

Pravdaseeker

Problem is maybe the magnetic signatures vulerability to being identified and tracked via sattelite.

I didn’t realize we were at war with China.

Why would they kill their customers?

a reply to: JBurns

Actually, diesel/electric subs are pretty damned quiet. They just have to surface from time to time. That's why we don't use them anymore.

russians had this already in dev. you can see it by mag detection sensors

MHD drives have been around for awhile. They really aren't that great. It also produces a lot of bubbles. Which is bad if you care about noise (like most ships, especially submarines, do).
Technical difficulties I see from this articles limited information: a permanent magnet probably isn't going to scale up the way you want it to. You're going to need superconductors and a big power supply (nuclear would be handy) for something practical. It's just physics. Also, good luck with the corrosion issue! You're going to need it.
You can make a ship work with an MHD. It's just expensive and relatively inefficient.
Practically, maybe they could use it for station keeping for at sea platforms or something similar by varying flow through the permanent magnets. Maybe. Or a very, very slow ship/sub. Despite the Hollywood factor, it really isn't going to be quiet. And it'll make a MAD (magnetic-anomaly detector) go nuts. You could probably track it by ions if you employed a relevant sensor.
There's a reason why noonee is using this 50+ yr old technology!

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: JBurns

Actually, diesel/electric subs are pretty damned quiet. They just have to surface from time to time. That's why we don't use them anymore.

Diesel-electric is actually quieter when sitting silent all things being equal (they rarely are), because nuke boats constantly generate pump noise.

a reply to: Phage


Phage, that is really interesting. I had always figured the acoustic microphones had something to do with engine noise, but from a little research it appears much more complicated than that.

Always good to learn something new

a reply to: RadioRobert


Thanks for the information, that is news to me!

Interesting story though, hopefully it doesn't present too many tactical challenges for us

The daily mail adds 2 and 2 and gets 6. The actual source document talks about a permanent magnet motor. With plans to use it on a motor driven pump jet set up. Reported on Jane's few days ago.

www.janes.com...

It's not a Caterpillar drive.

In other news
The Chinese realize that magnets do not work well constructed of cheap Chinese plastic...

Certainly no submarine stealth expert here, but I thought propeller cavitation was the biggest stealth challenge to a submarines anymore, not engine / mechanical noise.

I also seem to recall reading an article stating that modern Russian diesel-electric subs are quite a bit 'quieter' than virtually all of the nuclear subs. In fact, I believe the same article cited an incident a couple years back where a Russian diesel-electric sub sailed right up through the Gulf of Mexico, undetected, and hung out just outside the Kings Bay submarine base in GA. It wasn't discovered until they surfaced (probably intentionally so they would be discovered) as they sailed south back out of the Gulf.

a reply to: RadioRobert

I think the one we played around with topped out at something like 12 knots. It sounds cool as hell, but yeah, it really does suck.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

That's one of those fun, "hey Congress, we need more money for ASW" stories. Depending on who you talk to, it was a different kind of sub every time. A diesel electric, especially an AIP boat, will give ASW crews fits, which was why we leased a Swiss boat and crew for several years, but the Russian boats are all older and fairly noisy.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Not that it adds much in the way of proof, but someone got a picture of this thing.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

Just because it was there doesn't mean it was there undetected. Just like us, they run patrols near the US, and do port visits in places like Cuba and South America.

There is a big difference between "they did it" and "they did it undetected".

If these are full sized submarines it takes a certain amount of Kilowatts to overcome inertia and fluid pressure.
They used Josephson junctions back in the 40's to track the magnetic field of ships and submarines.
So what are the Chinese trying to say?

originally posted by: pravdaseeker
Dear ATS Readers, Writers,

This is coming out of a Tom Clancy novel????

China has developed a new magnetic propulsion motor that could make nuclear submarines far stealthier, state media have claimed.
According to a new report, the China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation (CSIC) has tested the country’s first permanent system of this kind, paving the way for quieter and more elusive high-speed vessels.
The new magnetic drive, if successful, could bring the Chinese navy more on par with the US and other Western naval forces.

China tests radical magnetic propulsion system that could make nuclear submarines almost silent




In the book, I think it was called caterpillar drive...

Anyhow, interesting development..

Pravdaseeker

Does not even the most silent of movement thru water cause electrical or static detection of displacement? Silent sub...but detectable movement underwater of something moving. And that something will be the way to detect.