Posted on 11/17/2006 3:05:08 PM PST by anymouse
A team led by Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE:NOC - News) has won a $5.4 million contract from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to determine the feasibility of using supercavitation technology for stable, controllable, high-speed underwater transport.
The Underwater Express program is a DARPA technology research and evaluation program to establish the potential of a new technology. Supercavitation creates a gas cavity between the vehicle surface and the water, thereby reducing drag and increasing vehicle speed. The program's ultimate goal is a new class of underwater craft for littoral missions that can transport small groups of Navy personnel or specialized military cargo at speeds up to 100 knots.
In Phase 1 of the contract, which will last for 13 months, Northrop Grumman and its teammates will establish the technology basis for supercavitation transport through a series of testing and modeling activities, and produce a concept design for an underwater demonstrator vehicle.
Most of the work will be divided between Northrop Grumman's Undersea Systems facility in Annapolis, Md., and Pennsylvania State University's Applied Research Laboratory in State College, Pa. Other organizations contributing to the team include the University of Minnesota, the University of Maryland, the Navy's Naval Undersea Warfare Center in Newport, R.I., and BBN Technologies of Cambridge, Mass.
``Supercavitation technology has great potential to increase the speed of underwater vehicles,'' said John Golombeck, vice president of Naval and Surface Systems for Northrop Grumman's Systems Development and Technology business unit. ``By drawing on university research into supercavitation physics and adapting this technology for real-world use, we are opening up new naval transport opportunities.''
The contract comes with two 15-month options. Phase 2, worth up to $17 million, would include continued technology research at a larger scale and establish the detailed design of the demonstrator vehicle. Phase 3, worth up to $23.4 million, would include building a Demonstration Super-fast Supercavitating Transport (DSST) vehicle which would operate at 100 knots for durations of up to 10 minutes. The potential value of all three phases is $45.8 million.
Northrop Grumman Corporation is a $30 billion global defense and technology company whose 120,000 employees provide innovative systems, products, and solutions in information and services, electronics, aerospace and shipbuilding to government and commercial customers worldwide.
Navy tech ping
Doesn't cavitation = noise = we know where you are? And add Super to it?
You can't pierce the physical envelope in any way or you lose supercavitation. It's basically a fire and forget projectile of sorts.
They wouldn't be pursuing this, though, if there weren't some technical means available to suppress cavitation noise -- "Prairie Masker" used air bubbles to suppress propeller cavitation, although it didn't do anything for mechanical blade vibration. Streams of air bubbles around the vehicle might be what they're looking at.
Tom Clancy featured Spearfish in one of his novels, Red Storm Rising.
There was a previous thread about a year or more concerning this project.
Right up your alley.
To my knowledge, only the Russians have actually built experimental torpedoes using this technology and they are truly fire and forget. You can't have any guidence because you'd pierce the supercavition bubble and instantly
lose the effect.
I must have been sleeping during the explanation of how cavitation is in regards to how it effects the actual efficiency of a craft moving through the water...
I was of the impression that water bubbles surrounding a moving surface reduce the efficiency of that surface...
Thus more fuel is needed to compensate for whatever speed advantage these goobers are thinking they'll gain...
Its alot like air moving across a propeller or wing surface...Anything that is attached or moved across the wing or propeller is consiedered parasitic in nature, thus the "parasitic" drag coefficient comes into play...
I believe the hydrodynamic environment has similar qualities...
I may be wrong but if Northrup Grumman is working this, either I am mistaken or the reporting of this issue is about 180 degrees out...
I'm betting that I may be partially wrong...
BTW, the "Prairie Masker" system worked great...All the subs had to do is track the "rain" sounds...It was almost transient in nature (thats what usually confused the operators)...
But for the most part it worked pretty good...We had it on our ship...
It would be awesome to strike a seamount in one of these.
Analysis of the signatures (which I didn't see) were what led to the speculation that the "Echo" had been Prairie Masker-equipped.
That was the beginning of a very significant diplomatic effort to convince the Soviets not to carry through with their plans to base "Yankee"-class SSBN's on Cienfuegos. Deployed in the Gulf, they'd have had very short, flat trajectories to a number of sensitive locations: Homestead, McDill, Maxwell, Barksdale, Dyess...... in those days, the "Yankees" SS-N-6's were thought to be generally tasked with "hold-downs" on ICBM fields (pending arrival of counterforce ICBM's from central Siberia) and with strikes on cities (single warhead, 1.75 megatons, 1500 nm range). But "Yankee" boats patrolling in the Gulf would also be close to a string of SAC bomber bases and large cities as well.
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