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Nuclear Ninety North
Eclipse of the Midnight Sun
August 1st, 2008 |
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Below Decks: Engineering
2008-07-23 11:51 UTC |
Click images for reduced size. |
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Throughout the voyage, groups of twenty passengers were granted
escorted tours through the engineering facilities of the ship. Each
tour began with an open-ended question and answer session with
the chief engineer (in our group, at least, all questions were
answered without any hesitation, including the enrichment of the
uranium fuel, operating life of a fuel load, and temperature of the
primary coolant loop), followed by a tour of the power plant and other
engineering facilities. We were able to observe the reactor room
through a lead-glass viewport from the deck above, and visit the
high-tech (all flat screen) reactor control room, but photography was
not permitted in these facilities. There were no such restrictions
for the rest of the tour, although available light and confined
quarters made getting sharp photos challenging. Above is the steering
gear, with dual hydraulic cylinders operating the rudder.
Here is a view of the shaft which moves the rudder. I'm sorry
there's no handy scale reference here, but this thing is
huge.
The heat produced by the nuclear reactors drives steam
turbines which generate electricity to drive the triple
screws. This is the motor and driveshaft for one of
the screws.
There are enough pipes, valves, and steam gauges here to make
an engineer positively ecstatic!
Here's another view of a primary driveshaft which may give a
sense of how massive it is.
Nuclear, oil, or coal, ultimately marine propulsion is all
about steam, and here's where the energy gets turned
into propulsive power. The black cylinders are the turbines
which are driven from steam generated by the secondary coolant
loop heated by the reactors. They, in turn, drive the electrical
generators to the left, which we'll see below.
Nobody does dynamos better than Russians, and this massive
generator complex provides the electrical power for propulsion as well
as all of the other needs of the ship.
Nuclear power changes the energy economics of sea travel.
There's no need for “Navy showers” on a nuclear
powered ship! The reactor generates such abundant thermal
energy (compared with the propulsive energy ultimately
delivered to the screws), that the engineering challenge is
getting rid of the excess heat. In fact, Arktika class
icebreakers are believed unable to traverse Equatorial waters
due to the inability to reject waste heat in the warm
seas there. But when you have excess heat, there are many
salutary things you can do with it, such as operating these
desalinisation plants, which provide an essentially unlimited
supply of fresh water for however long the ship should be
at sea.
This document is in the public domain.