The USS Gerald R Ford and the HMS Queen Elizabeth
are the latest and most modern aircraft carriers
in the world. Both use the latest technology
to support planes like the F-35 but why has
the British carrier not followed in the footsteps
of the American carriers and used nuclear
to power it’s systems and what are the pro’s
and cons of being nuclear or non-nuclear in
a modern navy.
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As the British influence and military budgets
shrank after WW2 so did the size and number
of its aircraft carriers in the belief that
new carriers would be used as part of a larger
NATO task force. So the last generation of
invincible class light carriers was coming
in at 22,000 tonnes, Compared to the US’s
Nimitz class which tip the scales at 100,000
tonnes.
The British carriers were built primarily
for anti-submarine warfare in the cold war
North Atlantic and not for projecting naval
power around the world like the US ones.
However, after the devastating Kosovo war
of the late 1990s, Europe was seen to have
done too little too late to intervene. So
a European Union Rapid Reaction Force was
proposed that would be able to act on a global
level and independently of NATO and the US.
As part of this 3 new large aircraft carriers
would be built which would share a common
design, two by Britain and one by France with
other European nations making up the support
group.
However things didn’t quite go to plan,
the French cancelled their carrier in 2013
due to budget restraints and because they
thought that the non-nuclear propulsion was
a step backward for French technology.
So the British continued alone with the HMS
Queen Elizabeth and the HMS Prince of Wales
as it was now believed that bigger was better
and small carriers just couldn’t provide
air superiority quickly, one of a number of
lessons learned from the Falklands war.
These are collectively called the Queen Elizabeth
Class carriers or QEC and named after a first
world war super-dreadnought battleship and
not the current Queen of England just in case
you were wondering.
Even though the QEC carriers are a bit smaller,
they are still the second-largest non-US Navy
warships in the world after the WW2 Yamato-class
Japanese battleships, displacing 65-70,000
tonnes depending on the final build. They
were also to be of an adaptable design that
could use either CATOBAR ~ Catapult Assisted
Take-Off, Barrier Arrested Recovery or Ski
jumps for Short Take Off and Vertical Landing
aircraft, in particular, the F-35B Lightning
II joint strike fighter.
When the British carriers were on the drawing
board nuclear power was looked at as an option.
With the right design, it can provide enough
power to run the ship without refuelling for
up 25 years.
Land-based reactors usually produce about
1600MW, marine reactors are a few hundred
MW. These reactors have to be very small yet
powerful for their size to fit in the limited
space of a ship, even one the size of an aircraft
carrier
This small size means more expensive materials
have to be used that are more resistant to
radiation and that the neutron interaction
with fissionable material before it escapes
into the shielding is much less. So highly
enriched weapons-grade uranium is often used,
this increases the power density and extends
the reactor lifetime but is much more expensive
and a greater security risk.
You also can't rely on gravity to drop the
control rods into the reactor core to shut
it down like land-based one because the pitching
and rolling motion of the ship in the sea,
so mechanical control systems must work flawlessly.
This and extra things like the desalination
of seawater to make fresh water for the cooling
system, all add’s to the cost and makes
it very expensive to build a nuclear-powered
ship.
But in recent years there has been a move
against nuclear ships with some countries
not allowing nuclear-armed or powered ships
in their territorial waters and as these are
the flagships of the country they represent
they are carrying both ecological and political
baggage.
The size of the QEC carriers also limits where
they can dock and maintenance can be carried
out only at nuclear-certified ports. The UK
has only two certified X Berths at Devonport
and Faslane.
Maintenance requires specialist nuclear technicians
and then there is the decommissioning at the
end of their working lives. The US has a specialist
area at Puget sound for the disposal of their
nuclear assets and large areas in remote locations
where the remains of the reactors can be buried.
The UK has still to complete the decommissioning
of a single nuclear submarine.
Although Britain could build nuclear carriers,
all its experience is in submarines and not
surface ships. The only shipyard set up for
assembly of nuclear-powered ships is Rosyth
which is booked up with decommissioning old
nuclear subs and building new ones. It would
also need to bring in a substantial number
of nuclear specialists from the US or France
at considerable expense as we don’t have
enough in the UK.
All this contrasts with the US, where the
US Navy is one of the biggest and oldest nuclear
operators in the world. It has a huge amount
of experience that dates back to the end Manhattan
project in the 1940’s.
It has developed 27 different reactor designs
that have been used in 219 nuclear-powered
vessels and brought over 526 reactor cores
into operation. It currently operates 81 nuclear-powered
vessels, 11 aircraft carriers and 70 submarines.
It’s clocked up over 6200 reactor years
and the nuclear-powered vessels have travelled
over 240 million Km without a single reactor
accident and it has a safety record that is
second to none.
One of the major differences between the new
US Ford-class carriers and the previous generation
Nimitz class was the introduction of more
powerful A1B reactors built by Bectel which
are both smaller and simpler to operate, yet
generate at least 25% more power than the
A1W Westinghouse built reactors in the Nimitz.
The Nimitz class carriers have been in service
since 1975 and in that time a lot of new technology
has been developed such as the EMALS Electromagnetic
Aircraft Launch System as well as many more
modern systems requiring an electrical supply.
There are also the near-future weapons and
defence systems like rail guns, directed energy
weapons and dynamic armour in the pipeline
all of which will require large electrical
supplies, something that the Nimitz class
had reached the limits of.
The Ford Class carriers were designed to have
at least double the electrical generating
capacity of anything they need now to allow
for future developments.
The US carriers use steam-power not only to
power the turbines for the propellers but
also electrical generators and steam catapults
to launch the planes, steam being something
which the nuclear reactors produce a lot of.
But all the steam plumbing creates a lot of
complexity, maintenance, weight, and more
manpower to operate and also determines where
the reactors are placed.
Whilst steam catapults have proved to be very
reliable in the past they have no form of
feedback control and as such can transmit
very large tow forces that can stress the
airframes of the planes especially lighter
ones which means more maintenance, cost and
aircraft downtime.
So for the Ford Class carriers, the EMALS
Launch System was developed. This uses an
electric linear motor that uses feedback to
accelerate the plane smoothly depending on
its weight. Its also lighter and less complex
to fit than the old steam ones and with a
quicker recharge time should be able to launch
more sorties in the same time.
Something which is often talked about it is
the unlimited range of nuclear-powered ships.
Well, yes they do have an unlimited range
but unlike a nuclear submarine which travels
alone, a carrier is always accompanied by
the carrier strike group of supporting warships
which are often non-nuclear.
The planes themselves also require aviation
fuel has to be replenished by supply ships
along with food, water, and ammunition if
extended missions are ongoing.
The Royal Navy has never operated nuclear
carriers, so it has always had oilers or fuel
replenishment tankers to resupply it’s aircraft
carriers as part of their operation. This
meant there was much less of an incentive
to go nuclear with the new carrier.
The cost of building and maintaining nuclear
is higher than running conventional oil powered
carriers, even with rising fuel costs factored
in. It will take about 15 years before the
cost of fuel catches up extra cost of building
a nuclear version and that’s without the
periodic nuclear refuelling costs and the
very expensive and problematic decommissioning
at the end of their service life.
Old conventional Aircraft carriers are often
sold on to foreign powers so some of that
money can be recouped, nuclear ships, on the
other hand, can not be sold on and become
a liability.
About every 25 years or so the nuclear reactors
on a Nimitz class carrier have to be refuelled
which can take it out of service for several
years and is usually combined with a major
refit and cost’s billions to complete.
The Royal Navy has only a small number of
nuclear technicians for its submarine fleet
and would struggle to find new ones to look
after any new nuclear carriers.
So if nuclear was out what could be used in
its place. The solution they opted for was
Integrated electric propulsion or IEP with
electric motors to drive the propellers, something
which is well proven in the commercial shipping
sector but still a novel feature in military
ships, the new Zumwalt class destroyers in
the US navy also uses this type of IEP propulsion.
Using a combination of two Rolls-Royce Marine
Trent MT30 36MW gas turbines, basically, a
Rolls Royce Trent 800 jet engine mated to
a generator and four 11MW Wärtsilä diesel
generators, this combined setup can supply
up to 116MW of electrical power.
The QEC carriers have twin propellers which
are each driven by two 20MW General Electric
induction motors.
The diesel generators provide the baseload
supply for normal cruising and when extra
speed or power is required the gas turbines
are used as well.
As the entire system is electrical, the generators
can be anywhere on the ship that is suitable,
freeing up space for other uses like aircraft
hanger storage.
Both the QEC carriers were designed for the
EMALS launch system even though it wasn’t
fitted in the end, they still enough power
generation to allow it to be retro fitted
at some point in the future if required.
Lessons learned from the Falklands War showed
that the STOVL Short Take-Off and Vertical
Landing Sea Harriers on a light carrier like
HMS Invincible could carry out more sorties
than conventional aircraft on a larger catapult
powered carrier like the Ark Royal as it would
have been severely limited due to the bad
weather of the South Atlantic if it had been
in service as it was scrapped two years earlier.
Instead of using the conventional takeoff
F-35C that the US Navy opted for and which
are suited to the larger Ford Class with the
EMALS launcher, the MOD opted for the F-35B
STOVL version which meant the need for catapult
and arresting gear was removed and echoed
the Falklands experience but now with a full-sized
carriers, each with many more aircraft.
A ski jump at the end of the runway requires
nothing in the way of power or complexity
compared to a catapult but achieves the same
result with STOVL aircraft.
So, in the end, the Royal Navy ended up with
two of the most modern carriers in the world
but without going down the nuclear route,
yes it was a cost-cutting measure but then
the US defense budget is about $600M to the
UK’s $50M and you could have two QEC carriers
for the price of one Ford-class carrier with
a substantial amount of change and without
all the nuclear baggage and long term costs
that it entails and do a very similar job.
What do you think of the latest carriers from
the UK and the US, let me know in the comments,
so thanks for watching and please don’t
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