Jump to content
Please support this forum by joining the SH Patreon ×
Sturgeon's House

I'ma Firing mah lazor-beam!


Belesarius

Recommended Posts

"Enemy rebels within range sir!"

"Fire the port turbolaser batteries. Release the TIE fighters."

 

*Chinese Su-27s explode, the rest scattered by F-18s.*

 

*The Millennium J-20 then flies in the rear cargo bay of the carrier, firing on it's reactor and escaping before the ship explodes*

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

With this future in mind, the Ford-class carriers are built with three times the electrical power generating capacity compared to Nimitz-class carriers, Moore said.

The USS Ford is able to generate 13,800 volts of electrical power, more than three times the 4,160 volts that a Nimitz-class carrier generates, said Rear Adm. Thomas Moore, Program Executive Officer, Carriers.

 

The words they are using do not mean what they thing they mean

 

Also, I'm pleased by the name of the USS Ponce

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This article is pretty confused about reactor technology in general.

 

I'm not sure where they got that the Ford will have four reactors; every reference I can find says it will have two A1B reactors.

 

There are three power parameters we're interested in with an aircraft carrier.

 

The first parameter is how much thermal power output the reactor or reactors have.  This is the measure of how much heat is generated per second in the reactor core(s).

 

The next parameter is how much shaft horsepower the steam turbines can output.  At optimal settings a steam turbine can convert about 30% of the thermal energy going into it into shaft horsepower, which is then delivered to the props.  In a nuclear-powered ship, the propulsion is provided by these nuclear-fired steam turbines.  There is also an upper limit on how much power the steam turbines can take, and this is usually less than what the reactors can produce.

 

Finally, there's the output of the electrical generators.  I'm not exactly sure how these are set up, but I'm guessing they're steam turbines too, just attached to generators instead of propellers.  It's probably safe to assume that these are around 30% efficient at converting thermal power into electrical power.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The reason that the Ford-class will have greater electrical generation capacity is that a lot of the steam-powered accessories will be replaced with electrically-powered ones.

 

The catapult, for example, will be electromagnetic instead of steam powered.  This and the other changes are supposed to reduce maintenance requirements compared to the Nimitz.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The reason that the Ford-class will have greater electrical generation capacity is that a lot of the steam-powered accessories will be replaced with electrically-powered ones.

 

The catapult, for example, will be electromagnetic instead of steam powered.  This and the other changes are supposed to reduce maintenance requirements compared to the Nimitz.

 

Foxtrot Alfa has had a few stories on how unreliable the new cats are.  I wonder how many F-35s and F-18s are going to go swimming. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah, they were saying a failure every 240 shots under testing conditions. 

I wonder how much it will cost if they have to tear out the new electromagnet cats and funky recover gear and put the proven stuff in… 

 

Hahaha, you've got jokes now. Those space savings got cashed in. Redesigning ships like that is problematic in the extreme.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Uh oh.

 

Redesigning the catapults to revert to steam would be seriously complicated.  You'd need to have high-pressure steam lines running from the boilers to the cat, which is an awful lot of specialized plumbing to throw back in at the last minute there.

 

And there are all sorts of secondary considerations, like all the crew bunkerage needed to maintain the steam catapult.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...