8/16/2023 0 Comments Ohio class submarine interior headThe Ministry of Defence ordered the first three boats in 1997 but, according to a National Audit Office (NAO) report, the first six years of the Astute programme were plagued by technical problems caused by 3D CAD, which was being used on British submarines for the first time (before CAD, submarine designers used 2D drawings and a one-fifth-scale model). So the designers of Astute modelled the impact of the explosion and bubble, and created a hull which, Godden says, can withstand those forces. The bubble lifts the ship or submarine and breaks its back. The weapons used against submarines do not need to be highly explosive – their primary damage is caused by an air bubble created under the vessel after the explosion. They also modelled being hit by a torpedo. "We created computer models of structures involved in the propulsion and pipework systems," says Godden, "and then modelled how we thought noise would be transmitted through those structures and pipe systems to the hull, and then obviously we tried to damp those noise paths to make the boat as quiet as we possibly could." Or equipping it with listening devices using arrays of hydrophones attached to all exterior surfaces of the submarine and some that trail behind when the sub is at sea (the loud pinging sonar you hear in films is rarely used because it reveals position). For instance, silencing a 97-metre-long, 7,400-tonne piece of metal with 100 people inside. There are 3,500 people working on the Astute submarines, at a total cost of £10 billion. Now it is owned by engineering firm BAE Systems. The yard has built all the Swiftsure, Trafalgar and Vanguard class, as well as the Royal Navy's first submarine, the HMS Holland 1, in 1901. He joined the Barrow shipyard as a mechanical-engineering graduate 23 years ago, when it was owned by Vickers. Godden, 44, has been director of the engineering function, which supports the Successor and Astute programmes, since 2010.
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