Latest U.S Navy contracts, and a 100 mph UNDERWATER Submarine
The Pentagon says the five-year contract awarded by the Naval Sea Systems Command is intended to demonstrate significant fuel savings by incorporating advanced electric machine technology. According to the GA executive, the Navy contract calls for integrating a prototype electric motor with the warship’s reduction gears, enabling the destroyer to use its electric motor for low-speed operations below 10 or 12 knots (about 14 mph)
The work will be done in San Diego, Milwaukee, WI, and Hudson, MA.
The award is the latest in a series of major contracts the Navy has awarded to General Atomics’ electromagnetic division since 2004. Those contracts include:
—Development of the Navy’s first electromagnetic aircraft launcher, designed to replace the steam-powered catapults now used aboard U.S. aircraft carriers.
Design of a Naval deck gun that uses similar technology to the electromagnetic aircraft launcher, that fires a projectile. Also known as a rail gun, the system is expected to lob a 31-pound shell almost 288 miles at Mach 7.5, farther and faster than any existing Naval artillery.
The Pentagon in conjunction with DARPA and the US Navy, have been designing and developing a Supercavitating underwater submarine, for the last 10 years. With a projected speed of over 100 miles per hour underwater.
Their interest is based on an old Cold War idea, when the Russians actually developed an underwater torpedo called the Shkaval ("squall") that could go more than 200 mph— or five times as fast as a conventional torpedo—using a rocket engine and air ejected in front to produce a gaseous bubble completely enveloping the projectile. That reduces the friction between the hull and its surroundings, by a factor of about 900, enabling superfast travel. Yet rocket-propelled torpedoes have downsides in performance and reliability; the sinking of the Russian submarine Kursk in 2000 is rumored to have been caused by a malfunctioning Shkval, that developed its supercavitating speed by using a secret gas.
The top designer of the superfast cavitating submarine for the last five years -is Gregory Sancoff, the founder and CEO of Juliet Marine Systems, a private company in Portsmouth, NH.
His vehicle dubbed the “Ghost,” is the first of its kind and is garnering attention from organizations like the U.S. Navy, Coast Guard, defense contractors, and foreign governments—as well as hackers in foreign countries, who are presumably trying to figure out how it works. Juliet Marine Systems has received about $10 million in total funding, about half of which comes from its founder and private investors. The startup’s institutional investor is Avalon Ventures, a VC firm with offices in the San Diego and Boston areas.
How does it work? All Sancoff will say is "“We’re basically riding on two supercavitating torpedoes. And we’ve put an X shaped boat on top of it”
Sancoff said our Supercavitating "Ghost" can go in excess of 100 miles an hour underwater. But that’s not going to challenge the top speedboat records—there have been hydroplane efforts (riding on the water surface) that have exceeded 200 mph (174 knots) and even 300 mph (261 knots), some with fatal results—but the Ghost is faster than any previous underwater vehicle.
What’s more, he says, the Ghost provides a much smoother ride than what Navy SEALs are used to; many of them blow out their backs from the bumpiness of their boats, “Our boat does not have impact from the waves. We cut through under the waves,” Sancoff says. “That is critical science.”
Sancoff claims that Juliet Marine’s website is getting “attacked” 350 times a month by hackers, mostly by foreign countries.
Roger Arndt, also a professor at the University of Minnesota, is an expert in fluid flow and cavitation. He has doubts about the Ghost propulsion method. In fact, cavitation bubbles are normally bad for propellers and can cause serious damage. But there is a type of propeller, with wedge-shaped blades, that produces supercavitation in high-speed racing boats; presumably this is similar to Ghost’s propellers. But in this case, Arndt says, “I am dubious about the application of supercavitating propellers. Unless its a underwater jet?” (To be fair, Sancoff did say that what’s in the patent filing isn’t quite how it works.)
Meanwhile, the Pentagon and the U.S. State Department has granted Juliet Marine permission to talk with the governments of Israel and UAE, which both have marine security concerns. The company says it is currently building a manufacturing facility near Portsmouth, in anticipation of ramping up to sell Ghost ships to customers. Sancoff adds that Juliet Marine is planning to build two more versions of the ship this fall, using what he calls “the final configuration.”
Not surprisingly, Sancoff sees an urgent military need for his craft. The Navy loses sleep about swarm attacks and security in the Strait of Hormuz (which runs between Iran, United Arab Emirates, and Oman) and other strategic waterways, he says. Yet it hasn’t moved quickly enough to do anything about the threats. “We talk with the Navy weekly,” he says. “We believe the U.S. could use a dozen of these boats right away.” At a price of $20 million per boat—fully loaded with electronics,...that “provides us with a billion-dollar market opportunity for coastal and fleet protection,” he says.
