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Engineers at Northrop Grumman try to build a better submarine
By JON W. GLASS, The Virginian-Pilot
© July 6, 2007
NEWPORT NEWS
In bits and pieces, ship designers and engineers at Northrop Grumman Newport News are trying to build a better submarine.
They're aiming for technology breakthroughs, such as figuring out novel ways to launch weapons and retrieve unmanned submersibles. They also are working on a new hull design - a wide oval shape, rather than the cylindrical tubes of today.
Their efforts could help save taxpayers a bundle of money - and protect their own jobs.
The work, paid for in part by the company's research-and-development dollars, is being done in the absence of a formal Navy program for a new submarine design - and uncertainty over when money will be made available to begin it.
Major design work for the Virginia-class fast-attack subs, being assembled by Northrop Grumman and partner General Dynamics Electric Boat, is done. It could be seven more years before the next submarine design begins - to replace the Ohio-class ballistic-missile subs.
Both Navy and industry officials worry that too long a gap could result in the loss of critical shipyard skills and drive up the cost of building the next class of submarines by more than $1 billion. A $975,000 study recently done for the Navy by the Rand Corp., an independent think tank, underscored those potential problems.
"The Rand study confirms what we thought, which is this is a fragile design base that needs to be sustained," said Rear Adm. William Hilarides, the Navy's program executive officer for submarines.
The submarine development work the Peninsula shipbuilder is piecing together is viewed as one key way to weather the gap.
"Working with the technologies that may apply to submarines is one way we can keep our engineers and designers sharp and current and ready to step up to the plate when the next design comes along," said Charlie Butler, the shipbuilder's director of submarine engineering.
Company officials would not disclose how much money Northrop Grumman is spending on the design R&D.
One of the major internally funded projects, now beginning to attract Navy interest, is known by the acronym NNemo, for Newport News Experimental Model.
Launched in 2003, the NNemo project involves research on a new hull shape that is shorter and wider than the existing tube-shaped submarines.
Currently, company engineers and designers are working on their second prototyp e, built to about 1/20th scale.
With the NNemo, engineers are looking for a submarine that can handle more payloads, accommodate more intelligence-gathering sensors, and is faster and easier to maneuver, said Pete Diakun, the shipbuilder's director of technology development.
"We started from the standpoint of looking at the art of possibilities, not to be in the paradigm of a standard cylindrical submarine," Diakun said.
Making the boat wider, for instance, added room to install twin drive shafts, which allows for quicker turns and significantly improved maneuverability and the ability to operate in shallower water, said Walt Floyd, the company's manager of submarine technology.
The model's broader tail provided space for a sensor array to be installed, giving a sub crew a 360-degree view around the boat, an advantage over a conventionally shaped sub, he said.
The remote-controlled prototypes have been tested in a wind tunnel at NASA Langley Research Center to measure fluid flow and force and torque on the hull and have undergone water trials in the crystal clear waters of a rock quarry.
Later this year, a representative hull-section model - 16 feet long, 10 feet wide and 30,000 pounds - will be put in a Navy pressure tank to test how deep such a submarine could dive before it collapses.
That is an indication of the Navy's increasing interest in NNemo, Diakun said. "That's really a step forward for us," he said.
To date, the Navy has not provided direct funding for NNemo. However, the service has awarded money for other submarine research the company is now doing.
For instance, the Navy and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency earlier this year awarded the shipbuilder $12.7 million to work on an external weapons launcher.
That work is part of a larger project meant to find ways to overcome technical barriers in submarine construction, called Tango Bravo in Navyspeak.
Figuring out a way to mount a submarine's torpedo launchers outside the pressure hull - the challenge for Northrop Grumman's team - would free up interior space for other uses and eliminate the big expense of extending torpedo tubes through a sub's hull, Butler said.
The Navy's Hilarides said such work, including ongoing efforts by the Newport News and Electric Boat yards to make design changes to drive down costs on the Virginia-class subs, helps buffer the industry before work ramps up on a new Ohio-class design.
Concern over the next submarine design is heightened partly because this is the first time a new design has not been under way, or about to begin, since the Pentagon launched its nuclear-powered sub program about five decades ago.
But ultimately, Hilarides said, military needs come first in the decision on when to begin the Ohio-class design work.
"Industrial policy should not drive war-fighting requirements," Hilarides said.
"We'll see how that plays in the Pentagon as they debate the war-fighting requirements first, before we get the industrial policy out in front of it."
By JON W. GLASS, The Virginian-Pilot
© July 6, 2007
NEWPORT NEWS
In bits and pieces, ship designers and engineers at Northrop Grumman Newport News are trying to build a better submarine.
They're aiming for technology breakthroughs, such as figuring out novel ways to launch weapons and retrieve unmanned submersibles. They also are working on a new hull design - a wide oval shape, rather than the cylindrical tubes of today.
Their efforts could help save taxpayers a bundle of money - and protect their own jobs.
The work, paid for in part by the company's research-and-development dollars, is being done in the absence of a formal Navy program for a new submarine design - and uncertainty over when money will be made available to begin it.
Major design work for the Virginia-class fast-attack subs, being assembled by Northrop Grumman and partner General Dynamics Electric Boat, is done. It could be seven more years before the next submarine design begins - to replace the Ohio-class ballistic-missile subs.
Both Navy and industry officials worry that too long a gap could result in the loss of critical shipyard skills and drive up the cost of building the next class of submarines by more than $1 billion. A $975,000 study recently done for the Navy by the Rand Corp., an independent think tank, underscored those potential problems.
"The Rand study confirms what we thought, which is this is a fragile design base that needs to be sustained," said Rear Adm. William Hilarides, the Navy's program executive officer for submarines.
The submarine development work the Peninsula shipbuilder is piecing together is viewed as one key way to weather the gap.
"Working with the technologies that may apply to submarines is one way we can keep our engineers and designers sharp and current and ready to step up to the plate when the next design comes along," said Charlie Butler, the shipbuilder's director of submarine engineering.
Company officials would not disclose how much money Northrop Grumman is spending on the design R&D.
One of the major internally funded projects, now beginning to attract Navy interest, is known by the acronym NNemo, for Newport News Experimental Model.
Launched in 2003, the NNemo project involves research on a new hull shape that is shorter and wider than the existing tube-shaped submarines.
Currently, company engineers and designers are working on their second prototyp e, built to about 1/20th scale.
With the NNemo, engineers are looking for a submarine that can handle more payloads, accommodate more intelligence-gathering sensors, and is faster and easier to maneuver, said Pete Diakun, the shipbuilder's director of technology development.
"We started from the standpoint of looking at the art of possibilities, not to be in the paradigm of a standard cylindrical submarine," Diakun said.
Making the boat wider, for instance, added room to install twin drive shafts, which allows for quicker turns and significantly improved maneuverability and the ability to operate in shallower water, said Walt Floyd, the company's manager of submarine technology.
The model's broader tail provided space for a sensor array to be installed, giving a sub crew a 360-degree view around the boat, an advantage over a conventionally shaped sub, he said.
The remote-controlled prototypes have been tested in a wind tunnel at NASA Langley Research Center to measure fluid flow and force and torque on the hull and have undergone water trials in the crystal clear waters of a rock quarry.
Later this year, a representative hull-section model - 16 feet long, 10 feet wide and 30,000 pounds - will be put in a Navy pressure tank to test how deep such a submarine could dive before it collapses.
That is an indication of the Navy's increasing interest in NNemo, Diakun said. "That's really a step forward for us," he said.
To date, the Navy has not provided direct funding for NNemo. However, the service has awarded money for other submarine research the company is now doing.
For instance, the Navy and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency earlier this year awarded the shipbuilder $12.7 million to work on an external weapons launcher.
That work is part of a larger project meant to find ways to overcome technical barriers in submarine construction, called Tango Bravo in Navyspeak.
Figuring out a way to mount a submarine's torpedo launchers outside the pressure hull - the challenge for Northrop Grumman's team - would free up interior space for other uses and eliminate the big expense of extending torpedo tubes through a sub's hull, Butler said.
The Navy's Hilarides said such work, including ongoing efforts by the Newport News and Electric Boat yards to make design changes to drive down costs on the Virginia-class subs, helps buffer the industry before work ramps up on a new Ohio-class design.
Concern over the next submarine design is heightened partly because this is the first time a new design has not been under way, or about to begin, since the Pentagon launched its nuclear-powered sub program about five decades ago.
But ultimately, Hilarides said, military needs come first in the decision on when to begin the Ohio-class design work.
"Industrial policy should not drive war-fighting requirements," Hilarides said.
"We'll see how that plays in the Pentagon as they debate the war-fighting requirements first, before we get the industrial policy out in front of it."