budden@trout.nosc.mil (Rex A. Buddenberg) (08/08/90)
From: budden@trout.nosc.mil (Rex A. Buddenberg) Article in Aug 1990 issue of Naval Institute Proceedings on the 'rest' of the sub threat (outside of USSR). "apart from the US and Soviet navies, 41 other countries operate more than 400 submarines." Sidebar on AIP including some handwaving explanations of how a few work. Closed cycle diesel recycles exhaust, mixes in more O2, fuel, etc and 'round she goes again. Italians have been working on a toroidal hull form that uses 3 inch pipes welded together to form both the hull and gas storage. Scandanavians are working on Stirling engines. Reciprocating, external combustion job. Both Norwegians and Swedes have prototypes and are working out scale-up problems. Fuel cells. Same theory as those in Apollo 13. Mix H2 and O2 and control the reaction. Produces electricity directly. Germans have been working on this technology for some time. (Hydrogen peroxide is somewhat more dangerous than the O2 and the H2 which is stored as a metal hydride.) Last item was low power nuclear reactor. Instead of driving steam turbines directly, the reactor drives a turbine which charges batteries. b