Posted on 03/11/2020 2:39:05 PM PDT by Red Badger
I saw that documentary. They might have started taking seawater through the reactor cooling pipes and begun flooding aft. Trying to blow ballast at depth, where it is very cold, they found the valves froze up and they couldn't empty the ballast tanks and losing depth the hull imploded.
This fellow Momsen was present on the surface and he personally knew some of the men on the sunken sub. It tore him apart that the boat was in fairly shallow water but that they had no means of rescuing the crew; it was this incident that pushed him to develop a specialized "lung" that would allow one to escape a submarine and come to the surface without an external source of air. (If you're familiar with the movie "Das Boot", there are a couple of scenes where the crew puts these on in response to the captain's call to don "escape gear"; they look like inflatable life vests that have not yet had the CO2 cartridge activated.)
It's been years since I've read the book, but my understanding is that the men of the Squalus owe their lives to Momsen's pioneering efforts. (An actual submariner on this thread might correct me on this; I don't know.)
I was told that the introduction of the Engine Room Fresh Water system was a direct result of the Thresher. The SSMGs on 688’s for example were cooled by ERFW, but I heard that they were cooled directly by seawater on 593/594’s. So not just stronger seawater pipe connections, but also less seawater piping overall.
I know what you're trying to say, but the way you're saying it is incredibly awkward.
The reactor coolant system is a pressurized closed loop freshwater system that does not have any connections to a seawater system (with the possible exception of some type of emergency cooling system).
If the Thresher had an emergency cooling system that cooled coolant via a seawater heat exchanger, it wouldn't make it into the reactor coolant system. That reactor coolant system pressure is much higher than any seawater system pressure. If there was a leak between those two systems, it would be an outward one, and once pressure equalized, the reactor coolant system could withstand the pressure of the sea without rupturing.
Under normal circumstances, the reactor coolant system exchanges heat in steam generators. The steam produced powers turbines and then is cooled and condensed by the main seawater cooling system. So ultimately, the reactor is cooled by seawater, but I don't recommend you calling the main seawater cooling system "reactor cooling pipes."
Regardless, from what I've heard, the seawater rupture was in an auxilary seawater cooling system which had nothing to do with the reactor.
This is what I’ve heard. I have a son on a boat so I have interest in this.
Interesting recent review of the scorpion?
I also am very interested in the truth.
We were a military family outside DC at the time, I was in 5th grade. All things military were always news in our home.
I worked for B&W NPGD in Lynchburg back in the 70’s. Got fire fighting training at the Naval Nuclear Fuels division on the James River. I lived in Appomattox and Lynchburg at the time.
Failure to maintain buoyancy is my guess
Well, that one was likely sunk by the Soviets.
Thank you.
I was told by a nuclear engineer about twenty years ago that the computer shut down the reactor/engine because it sensed a malfunction and the crew could not override the computer code.
Sort of.
1. There was no computer.
2. Procedures were revised to allow propulsion turbines to stay running after a scram.
3. Procedures were revised to allow for a rapid scram recovery.
BS!
I was a young girl when that happened and I remember it like it was yesterday. So sad. I was in the newspapers for weeks it seemed like....
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