Seawater in submarines
Doug Huffman
I suspect that these movies were of WWII vintage boats. They
operated under different constraints (crash dive to avoid
aircraft) and with different equipment (computers were
mechanical/analog).
As regards modern submarines; the hatch seen from the inside is
the inner hatch. When it is shut, the outer is already shut.
The only hatches with provisions for frequent water, that I
recall, were the trunk hatches (trunk = access up thru the
sail), that had a sump to gravity drains under it.
Electrical boxes are built with various levels of water
resistance that range from none (can't think of an example), to
drip proof (the ice cream maker), splash proof, spray tight
(switchboards), water tight (motor pecker heads) to pressure
tight (cooling pumps terminal boxes).
A more usual problem with a hatch is that it was shut too
tightly. Rig for dive checks can be done submerged, with sea
pressure on the outer hatch. New JOs, doing the check,
sometimes forget and shut the outer hatch even more tightly
when checking it shut. Subsequently, opening the hatch on the
surface can be difficult, even demanding a dive to loosen the
hatch. Generally happens only once per career (kinda like a
mercy flush over a pressurized sanitary tank).
Anyone that can resist *that* TINS invitation has been reading
the "careful what you post" thread too long.
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Grasping another opportunity to be wrong!
Doug Huffman<dhuf...@awod.com 13:14:48 10/18/95
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In Article<462rs0$6...@sndsu1.sedalia.sinet.slb.com>,
<pete-...@slb.com> wrote:
> In any number of submarine movies, you have seawater
cascading
> into the control room from a hatch. I would have expected
that
> corrosive, conductive seawater would be a bad thing to have
> dropping into a computer room. What really happens and why
> isn't it a problem?
>
> -Pete Hughes
>
Pete Hughes
ocar...@mnsinc.com
It is *not* a good thing. But small amounts thru the bridge hatch can be
tolerated; there is a sump under the hatch with drains to the bilge.
One always strives to keep the water out of the people-locker.
O
R. O'Keefe
: In any number of submarine movies, you have seawater cascading
: into the control room from a hatch. I would have expected that
: corrosive, conductive seawater would be a bad thing to have
: dropping into a computer room. What really happens and why
: isn't it a problem?
: -Pete Hughes
In older boats water coming in from the upper conning tower hatch
would drain into the pump room below the control room and probably
wouldn't cause much damage. The real damage would come from salt
water getting into a battery well, where H2SO4 (battery acid)
+ NaCl (salt) -> Cl (free chlorine gas) + ..... I loved to get involved
with "Water in the Battery well" drills, because the XO would run into
the Battery Comp't and declare all inhabitants dead, so we could
then watch the rest of the crew try to isolate and de-water and de-gas
the space.
Dick OKeefe
tim_mcfeely
most Submariners will tell you they would much rather deal with a
flooding casualty than a major fire, a massive seawater influx is not
something that brightens one’s day. 688 class boats are not like any
other sub built in recent years. There are only two watertight
compartments (not counting the washing machine). The ability to
recover from a massive flooding casualty is questionable. Ce’st
la Vie. Still any flooding caused internal to the pressure hull,
i.e a burst pipe, can be contained. A rip in the pressure hull, BOKYAG.
Seawater damage also does not necessarily have to come from an inadvertant
influx of seawater from outside the boat. Certain 688 class boats have
one hell of a time when the COW overfills Aux 1 or 2. The vents are located
ABOVE deck level in the torpedo room and flood the room everytime the
tank is filled, thoroughly pissing off the TMOW. The same with depth control
and Aux 4 in AMR, pissing of the AMR watch (although most of that will go
into the bilge were it belongs). The COW can overfill the forward/after trim tanks
again pissing of the TMOW and SK’s, because both tanks relief in the Torpedo
room right next to the SK shack. AuxF can forget to tighten down the bleeds
on the SCP depth gauges and piss seawater all over control. Torpedomen
can forget to tighten the breech penetrators for the MK 48 wire and
blow seawater all over the weapons stows. Almost anyone can screw
up the Rig for Dive procedure and leave something open which shows
up very quickly when the Diving Alarm sounds!!!
There are certain evolutions which will undoubtedly result in a seawater
invasion into the people tank, but these are understood and usually prepared
for (Cutting the floating wire/towed array, rapid 3 inch launcher ops,
mine laying ops, PERSTRANS at sea, heavy spray or fluke waves
down the bridge hatch, normal flooding and equalizing of the torpedo
tubes, escape trunk ops, and a number of other smaller evolutions).
MIL-SPEC requirements help prevent any damage by salt water to sensitive
components, but there are quite a few systems that do not have extensive
MIL-SPEC requirements that can cause as many problems as the major
Combat/Ops systems located in upper level. Any copper piping seems to turn
green with verdigris the second a salt laden breeze touches it, machinery grey
becomes crystalized as the salt water dries, bear traps look crappy, joint
band screws on MK 48’s corrode and fall apart , if not cleaned and dried.
And yes there are systems which do corrode and short circuit. MIL-SPEC
or not, if it wasn’t put together right after the last maintenance, uh, ohhh.
Lastly, the connections between weapons in the tube and the control cables
are extremely vulnerable to seawater. 115 volts AC and seawater do not mix
well and unfortunately the components do a remarkable job of protecting
the fuses by smoking themselves!!!!!
Scope's under...
Tim McFeely
ex-TM2(SS)...a dying breed
tim...@usa.net
ad...@osfn.rhilinet.gov
Mark Adkins
>Well, on my boat (USS Thomas Jefferson SSBN 618, circa 1975)
Tom I got off the TJ Blue Crew in 1969. Do you know a Sonar Girl named Mark Christensen (wife Linda)?
He would have been on board the same time you were when the missles were being upgraded from
A-2's in California.
I'd like to be able to contact him if I could. He would have been a 1st class making Chief around that time
with his first new born arriving.
Ski ex-MM2 (SS)
16 Empty Tubes - Mushroom Cloud - It's Miller Time!
Wayne Dohnal
writes:
>(emergency propulsion motor - a big d.c. motor that has the main propulsion
>saft as its stator).
If the main propulsion shaft is the stator, does the submarine rotate around
the shaft when the motor is turned on?
BlackBeard
>
> Seawater cascading into anyplace in a sub is a BAD THING. Although
> most Submariners will tell you they would much rather deal with a
>. 115 volts AC and seawater do not mix
> well and unfortunately the components do a remarkable job of protecting
> the fuses by smoking themselves!!!!!
>
silly tm hahaha ;)
you should asked an ICman, Thats what 1/4-20 no blows are for.
BlackBeard
-. .- -..- --.-
De Profundis
Matthew Revelle
>In any number of submarine movies, you have seawater cascading
>into the control room from a hatch. I would have expected that
>corrosive, conductive seawater would be a bad thing to have
>dropping into a computer room. What really happens and why
>isn't it a problem?
Call some of it creative license on the part of the director. It's
*usually* not nearly as bad as it seems. Also, there's a large grated
drain (on a 726) directly under the hatch.
+---------------+------------------------+-----------------------------+
| \\|// | Matthew Revelle | Ex - MM1/SS LELT |
| |o -| | rev...@dreamscape.com | USS Florida SSBN 728 (Blue) |
+-oOOo-(_)-oOoo-+------------------------+-----------------------------+
Alan Ballow
: In any number of submarine movies, you have seawater cascading
: into the control room from a hatch. I would have expected that
: corrosive, conductive seawater would be a bad thing to have
: dropping into a computer room. What really happens and why
: isn't it a problem?
: -Pete Hughes
It really did happen on two of my UsetaFish, and what happens is
a lot of electronics equipment gets wet and shorted and the crew is field
daying for a long time. Circuit boards can go in the shower for a fresh
water rinse and then get dried slowly in a low-temp oven. So it IS a
problem but the people who cause it (officers) are not the people who
have to deal with it.
Interestingly, both times this happened while transiting on the
surface home from the UK.
BlackBeard
Davis) wrote:
>
> Wayne Dohnal (wayne...@ccm.jf.intel.com) wrote:
> : In message <DGp0A...@nntpa.cb.att.com>, t...@baseworx.att.com (Tom Balent)
> selector valve in the control system for the stern planes, which puts
> them in the "EPM" position. This position moves the port (left) plane in
> full dive, and the starboard (right) plane in full rise. These
> hydraulics also feather the blades on the main screw in the same way an
> airplane's props can be feathered in flight. This gives us the necessary
> thrust from the spinning diving planes and the feathered screw stabilizes
> the boat and minimizes drag.
>
> <<OK Blackbeard, I'm waiting>>
I had to quit laughing first... ;)
actually I sent this to NIS , they said you'll be contacted for revealing
the super secret TET (Torpedo Emulation Tactic).
It wasn't the rotation that bothered me, it was the transition period.
Just like angles and dangles and snap rolls, the first indication of a
violent manuever was dishes breaking in the galley. Kinda like animals
noticing earthquakes before us ;) Once we got up to speed during a TET
things were ok. You forgot to mention how all guages on board had to be
readable from upside down. That way when the centrifugal force caused us
to all be walking on the overhead we could still take our logs. Remember,
you can't fight a war if all the logs aren't filled out correctly first.
ok, ok I know...enough of all this silliness....
I better get outta here before I turn this into a Monty Python skit
ocar...@mnsinc.com
> It really did happen on two of my UsetaFish, and what happens is
>a lot of electronics equipment gets wet and shorted and the crew is field
>daying for a long time. Circuit boards can go in the shower for a fresh
>water rinse and then get dried slowly in a low-temp oven. So it IS a
>problem but the people who cause it (officers) are not the people who
>have to deal with it.
>
> Interestingly, both times this happened while transiting on the
>surface home from the UK.
Why would anyone want to run home on the surface in the North Atlantic?
Something broke?
O
stcm/ss//ret