How Long Can a Nuclear Submarine Stay Underwater
Submarines are tremendous maritime machines – they dive underwater and stay there for extended periods of fourth dimension, conducting armed services operations or other forms of underwater research. The biggest advantage they offering, specially in the militaristic context, is that they can hide themselves beneath the water, away from the suspecting eyes of the enemy. In fact, that's the biggest reason why they were beginning used in the globe wars by the German Navy to wreak havoc on the Allied vessels.
A German submarine post the second Earth War. (Photo Credit : German Federal Archive/Wikimedia Commons)
However, the moment a submarine resurfaces, i.e., appears on the surface of water, it becomes a much easier target for the powerful guns and canons of enemy attacker and destroyer ships. That's why its often said that if you are able to successfully force a submarine to resurface, you've already won one-half the boxing.
That being said, if appearing on the h2o's surface is so dangerous for a submarine and its coiffure, why does it take to resurface at all? I mean, what keeps a submarine from staying submerged for an indefinite menstruum of time? Can't it stay underwater for the unabridged duration of a mission?
Unlike a regular ship, a sub can go underwater whenever it chooses to practise so. (Photograph Credit : Pixabay)
To understand the answer to this question, it helps if you lot generally know a thing or two near submarines.
Submarines tin can be categorized into two types based on the kind of engine they run on: diesel-electric or nuclear.
Submarines that run on diesel fuel electric engines are casually referred to every bit diesel-engine submarines or simply diesel subs. Similarly, submarines that utilize power generated by a nuclear reactor onboard are chosen nuclear-powered submarines, or simply, nuclear subs.
Irrespective of their type, submarines usually surface periodically, but the reasons for doing so differ in both cases.
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Why do diesel submarines have to resurface?
Diesel engines generate power through the process of internal combustion (the give-and-take 'internal' simply indicates that the diesel is burnt inside the primary part of the engine). Annotation that internal combustion engines are different from external combustion engines.
At present, you lot might recall from your high school science form that combustion is but the procedure of burning something in the presence of oxygen. The 'presence of oxygen' is very of import here, especially in the case of big metallic vessels operating underwater, away from a direct and fresh supply of oxygen.
Recharging the batteries of diesel submarines
Equally the proper name suggests, a diesel fuel submarine runs on a diesel engine, which means that it must come up upward to the surface (or at least periscope depth). Periscopes on submarines may be as tall as eighteen meters (effectually 60 feet). When a sub is submerged to a depth that is equal to the height of the periscope, the sub is said to be at periscope depth.
The tall, sparse tube erected at the front is the sub'due south periscope. Information technology'due south aptly called the 'eye of the submarine'. It lets the sub's crew have a view of the surrounding horizon while the sub remains submerged.
A submarine comes to the surface once every few days (or fifty-fifty more than frequently than that), not only to get a fresh supply of atmospheric oxygen from above the water's surface, but likewise to dispose of the waste matter gases that it produces onboard.
Snorkel
In that location'south a device known as the snorkel (the British call it the 'snort'), which lets subs operate submerged while however taking in air from to a higher place the surface. Once the sub comes to the surface, its diesel fuel engines run and produce power, which is used to recharge the batteries that ultimately run the sub.
USS U-3008 (ex-German submarine U-3008) View of the submarine's conning tower, with her snorkel raised. Taken at Fundamental Westward Naval Station, Florida Note her insignia painted on the front of the conning belfry. (Photograph Credit : USN/Wikimedia Commons)
Nuclear subs, on the other hand, rely on the ability generated by the nuclear reactor onboard. The reactor generates enough power to run all electronic and electrical systems onboard, in addition to the life support systems of the crew. Therefore, unlike diesel subs, nuclear subs can go for days, or even weeks on end without surfacing a single time. In fact, theoretically, a nuclear reactor onboard a submarine produces plenty power to run the sub for a couple decades!
Communications
Radio signals don't travel well deep underwater, particularly at the depths at which submarines usually operate during a mission. Therefore, both nuclear and diesel submarines must resurface in order to communicate with their home base, and receive orders and/or convey vital information.
Rations and supplies
A nuclear submarine tin can stay and operate underwater for a couple decades, and so long as information technology's adequately stocked with enough supplies and ration for its onboard crew to survive that long.
Obviously, that'due south nowhere virtually the realm of possibility, then submarines must resurface to load fresh supplies (from another vessel) and carry on, peculiarly if it's a long mission.
Maintenance
Howsoever sturdy and robust it may exist, a submarine, at the stop of the day, is still only a machine. It has a number of systems of unlike types – electrical, mechanical, electronic, hydraulic etc. – that get in piece of work underwater. At times, some of these systems have problems that the onboard coiffure cannot ready on the go. If any of these bug are critical, the captain usually orders the resurfacing of the sub so that essential repairs can be fabricated.
A submarine heads to a port to set up critical problems. (Photograph Credit : Pixabay)
The 'human' angle
Let'south not forget that a submarine is a manned vessel, i.e., it's run by human beings. Sometimes a member of the crew gets injured or falls sick, and requires proper medical attending. There could as well be some other sort of man emergency that calls for an unplanned resurfacing of the sub.
In addition to that, human beings are social animals. They accept to have a 'social life', i.due east., they have to talk to friends, meet people, visit places, eat dissimilar kinds of food, rampage watch TV shows, play video games, go out for a walk, have a long drive and do plenty of other stuff to maintain their sanity.
To brand sure that the crew doesn't go crazy as a upshot of staying inside a metallic tube for weeks on end, completely discrete from family, friends and the rest of the globe, submarine missions are planned in such a mode that the coiffure keeps 'rotating', meaning that no single crew must bear the burden of staying underwater for 'too long'. To brand that happen, submarines have to resurface then that the existing crew can debark as a fresh coiffure boards the sub for the next leg of the ongoing mission.
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Source: https://www.scienceabc.com/innovation/why-do-submarines-have-to-resurface-can-they-remain-submerged-indefinitely.html
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