CV-18 Fujian/003 CATOBAR carrier thread

Intrepid

Intrepid

Major
Max Demian said:
Difficult to eye-ball from this angle. I read that Iowa class had 100m long shafts. Ford is a much longer ship, so it wouldn’t be surprising if its shafts are even longer.
Click to expand...
I once saw a very nice explanatory YouTube video about the propeller shafts of a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, but unfortunately I can't find it again. I'll hand it in as soon as I've discovered it.
 
Intrepid

Intrepid

Major
I don't expect 003 to be nuclear powered. But I am amazed at the relatively large engine rooms. And of course I wonder why there was no further construction for two years.
 
asif iqbal

asif iqbal

Lieutenant General
not sure its hard to say but yes the carrier is large

very large exactly how large we will have wait and see

larger than QE and smaller than Ford Class
 
H

H2O

Junior Member
Registered Member
Well, I might as well weigh in since everyone is talking about the nuclear question. There are two sections that I'm looking at and it's about where a reactor would be (if you're using the Ford carrier as an example that Intrepid provided). There's no way of telling what's going on inside since deck plating have already been welded onto that module.

The question that I have to anyone here that knows, using the Ford carrier as an example, if this ship is conventionally powered, would the mechanical room layout be any different from their nuclear counterpart?


Intrepid said:
I don't expect 003 to be nuclear powered. But I am amazed at the relatively large engine rooms. And of course I wonder why there was no further construction for two years.
Click to expand...

Maybe the Navy needs to see if the third carrier actually meet their requirements. No point in building two carriers to find out there are design problems. People could point out the Type 075 but the Chinese Navy have the Type 071 and Liaoning to fine tune the design and the 075 is much cheaper to build.

A second possibility is the Navy have redirected funds towards the rumored Type 076. Why have one carrier when you can have multiple "half" carriers for the same price?
 
T

Tam

Brigadier
Registered Member
Lethe said:
The deteriorating strategic environment is precisely why China might plausibly abandon, pause, or delay the development of a nuclear-powered carrier. Conventional carriers are both significantly cheaper and faster to build than nuclear carriers and can provide the numbers and aggregate capabilities that PLAN would require to play a strategically significant role without breaking the bank. Conventional offers PLAN much better bang for buck over the medium-term (e.g. period to ~2035-40) in which the strategic balance and political situation with the USA and other regional nations is going to be most tense. Going straight to nuclear is for peacetime when you don't care about delivering X capabilities by Y date for Z cost because the technology and expertise involved in the endeavour are the goals in and of themselves.

Personally, I don't think PLAN should look at nuclear carriers until they have at least six conventional carriers on the board. And not just because of the balance of power/buildup/budget considerations noted above, but also in terms of minimising PLAN's exposure to potentially revolutionary technologies that may threaten the long-term viability of the aircraft carrier. That is to say, conventional over nuclear would not only be about putting more carriers into service, faster, but also putting fewer eggs in the eye-wateringly expensive "carrier" basket in the first place, freeing up more resources for expenditure elsewhere.
Click to expand...


I think for me, why there is an impetus for being nuclear is the claimed efficiency achieved for the ship to be EMALS and IEP simultaneously while being conventionally powered, with enough energy to launch heavy J-15 fighters with full loads along with KG-600s and keep the ship above 30 knots. For this reason, skipping to nuclear power directly might be easier as a brute force solution with sufficient margins than to assure the efficiency finesse of your EMAL and IEPS setup amidst daunting requirements while using conventional powerplants.
 
O

Orthan

Senior Member
Max Demian said:
Naval PWR are low temperature designs (also known as slow reactors) and operate at lower pressures than conventional steam plants, and therefore have less thermal efficiency and need to use larger turbines than conventional plants. Nuclear reactors require very heavy foundations and lead shielding which has a strong impact on hull design. It’s really not a plug-and-play switch at all.

A nuclear plant allows for substantial volume savings in a ship, that would have otherwise been consumed by fuel tanks and propulsion ventilation stacks. Such a ship can have smaller islands, will have a smaller IR signature and can sustain a higher aircraft sortie rate ( due to not needing to refuel as often).
Click to expand...

This GAO document is from 1998 but it helps explain the difference betwen conventional and nuclear propulsion for carriers. It estimates that nuclears carriers have life-cycle costs of $22,2 billion while conventional carriers have $14,1 billion. Also, conventional carriers spend less time on extended maintenance and have more flexibility on this. It found little difference in the operational effectiveness betwen them. It mentions that nuclear carriers can acelerate faster than conventional ones

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
 
A

Anlsvrthng

Captain
Registered Member
By the different navies engine buying strategies the partial / full IEPS beneficial for anti submarine warfare ships.

There is no real benefit of IEPS for a non ASW ship.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top