Posted on 11/25/2005 7:21:12 PM PST by Arjun
ATV project: India crosses major milestone
T.S. Subramanian
Nuclear-powered submarine to cruise the seas in five years
Land based reactor fully operational since December 2004 The fuel for the reactor is highly enriched uranium It is a top secret project having facilities at Kalpakkam
CHENNAI: India's efforts to build a nuclear-powered submarine crossed a major milestone when the project's land-based reactor became fully operational in December 2004 at Kalpakkam, near here. The reactor reached criticality by October last year.
The design of the submarine is ready, and the project, called Advanced Technology Vessel (ATV), has the involvement of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) and the Navy.
The miniature reactor's capability is about 100 MWe and the fuel is highly enriched uranium, supplied by the Rare Materials Project (RMP) at Ratnahalli, near Mysore.
The delay in the reactor reaching criticality was because of the time taken to produce enough quantity of uranium by the RMP.
Many components of the reactor, such as the steam-generator and the control rod mechanism, were fabricated in the country. Efforts now will be on getting a submarine-based reactor ready.
"Now that the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) has succeeded in operating the land-based reactor at Kalpakkam, the DRDO and naval designers have to integrate the reactor into the submarine," a source said.
(Excerpt) Read more at hindu.com ...
When I first read the title I thought they were going to make a sub like the NR-1 that ran along the bottom on wheels!
They'll have to take off those head wraps to close the hatch.
100 MW is big enough. But S1W was running in the early 50's.
Now, they gotta get it in the sub, load teh rest of the sub, and then operate it. Operate a bunch of them, actually.
As quiet as we operate ours.
I wonder if that name is reflective of what people living around this project have all over their bodies.
"100 MW is big enough. But S1W was running in the early 50's."
If that's the case then Indian nuclear submarine technology is roughly 55 years behind the U.S.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.