United States naval reactors are nuclear reactors used by the United States Navy aboard certain ships to generate the steam used to produce power for propulsion, electric power, catapulting airplanes in aircraft carriers, and a few more minor uses. Such naval nuclear reactors have a complete power plant associated with them. All U.S. Navy submarines and supercarriers built since 1975 are nuclear-powered by such reactors. There are no commissioned conventional (non-nuclear) submarines or aircraft carriers left in the U.S. Navy, since the last conventional carrier, USS Kitty Hawk, was decommissioned in May 2009. The U.S. Navy had nine nuclear-powered cruisers with such reactors also, but they have since been decommissioned. Reactors are designed by a variety of contractors, then developed and tested at one of several government owned and prime contractor-operated facilities: Bettis Atomic Power Laboratory in West Mifflin, Pennsylvania and its associated Naval Reactors Facility in Idaho, and Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory in Niskayuna, New York and its associated Kesselring site in West Milton, New York, all under the management of the office of Naval Reactors. Sometimes there were full-scale nuclear-powered prototype plants built at the Naval Reactors Facility, Kesselring, and Windsor to test the nuclear plants, which were operated for years to train nuclear-qualified sailors.
Seamanship is the art, knowledge and competence of operating a ship, boat or other craft on water. The Oxford Dictionary states that seamanship is "The skill, techniques, or practice of handling a ship or boat at sea."
NS Savannah was the first nuclear-powered merchant ship. She was built in the late 1950s at a cost of $46.9 million and launched on July 21, 1959. She was funded by United States government agencies. Savannah was a demonstration project for the potential use of nuclear energy. The ship was named after SS Savannah, the first steamship to cross the Atlantic ocean. She was in service between 1962 and 1972 as one of only four nuclear-powered cargo ships ever built.
The A2W reactor is a naval nuclear reactor used by the United States Navy to provide electricity generation and propulsion on warships. The A2W designation stands for:
Any vehicle used in or on water as well as underwater, including boats, ships, hovercraft and submarines, is a watercraft, also known as a water vessel or waterborne vessel. A watercraft usually has a propulsive capability and hence is distinct from a stationary device, such as a pontoon, that merely floats.
Nuclear marine propulsion is propulsion of a ship or submarine with heat provided by a nuclear reactor. The power plant heats water to produce steam for a turbine used to turn the ship's propeller through a gearbox or through an electric generator and motor. Nuclear propulsion is used primarily within naval warships such as nuclear submarines and supercarriers. A small number of experimental civil nuclear ships have been built.
A nuclear navy, or nuclear-powered navy, refers to the portion of a navy consisting of naval ships powered by nuclear marine propulsion. The concept was revolutionary for naval warfare when first proposed. Prior to nuclear power, submarines were powered by diesel engines and could only submerge through the use of batteries. In order for these submarines to run their diesel engines and charge their batteries they would have to surface or snorkel. The use of nuclear power allowed these submarines to become true submersibles and unlike their conventional counterparts, they became limited only by crew endurance and supplies.
In marine propulsion, a variable-pitch propeller is a type of propeller with blades that can be rotated around their long axis to change the blade pitch. Reversible propellers—those where the pitch can be set to negative values—can also create reverse thrust for braking or going backwards without the need to change the direction of shaft revolution.
Air-independent propulsion (AIP), or air-independent power, is any marine propulsion technology that allows a non-nuclear submarine to operate without access to atmospheric oxygen. AIP can augment or replace the diesel-electric propulsion system of non-nuclear vessels.
Replenishment at sea (RAS) or underway replenishment (UNREP) is a method of transferring fuel, munitions, and stores from one ship to another while under way. First developed in the early 20th century, it was used extensively by the United States Navy as a logistics support technique in the Pacific theatre of World War II, permitting U.S. carrier task forces to remain at sea indefinitely.
The Kitchen rudder is the familiar name for "Kitchen's Patent Reversing Rudders", a combination rudder and directional propulsion delivery system for relatively slow speed displacement boats which was invented in the early 20th century by John G. A. Kitchen of Lancashire, England. It turns the rudder into a directional thruster, and allows the engine to maintain constant revolutions and direction of drive shaft rotation while altering thrust by use of a control which directs thrust forward or aft. Only the rudder pivots; the propeller itself is on a fixed shaft and does not.
Marine propulsion is the mechanism or system used to generate thrust to move a watercraft through water. While paddles and sails are still used on some smaller boats, most modern ships are propelled by mechanical systems consisting of an electric motor or internal combustion engine driving a propeller, or less frequently, in pump-jets, an impeller. Marine engineering is the discipline concerned with the engineering design process of marine propulsion systems.
The harbour defence motor launch (HDML) was a 72 ft (22 m) long British-designed motor vessel used for harbour defence during World War II. Nearly 500 were built by numerous Allied countries during the war.
An engine order telegraph or E.O.T., also referred to as a Chadburn, is a communications device used on a ship for the pilot on the bridge to order engineers in the engine room to power the vessel at a certain desired speed.
The Paluma-class motor launch is a class of four hydrographic survey motor launches operated by the Royal Australian Navy (RAN). Built in Port Adelaide between 1988 and 1990, the four catamarans are primarily based at HMAS Cairns in Cairns, Queensland, and operate in pairs to survey the waters of northern Australia.
Integrated electric propulsion (IEP) or full electric propulsion (FEP) or integrated full electric propulsion (IFEP) is an arrangement of marine propulsion systems such that gas turbines or diesel generators or both generate three-phase electricity which is then used to power electric motors turning either propellers or waterjet impellors. It is a modification of the combined diesel-electric and gas propulsion system for ships which eliminates the need for clutches and reduces or eliminates the need for gearboxes by using electrical transmission rather than mechanical transmission of energy, so it is a series hybrid electric propulsion, instead of parallel.
The United States Navy Nuclear Propulsion community consists of Naval Officers and Enlisted members who are specially trained to run and maintain the nuclear reactors that power the submarines and aircraft carriers of the United States Navy. Operating more than 80 nuclear-powered ships, the United States Navy is currently the largest naval force in the world.
On a ship, the fire room, or FR or boiler room or stokehold, referred to the space, or spaces, of a vessel where water was brought to a boil. The steam was then transmitted to a separate engine room, often located immediately aft, where it was utilized to power the vessel. To increase the safety and damage survivability of a vessel, the machinery necessary for operations may be segregated into various spaces, the fire room was one of these spaces, and was among the largest physical compartment of the machinery space. On some ships, the space comprised more than one fire room, such as forward and aft, or port or starboard fire rooms, or may be simply numbered. Each room was connected to a flue, exhausting into a stack ventilating smoke.
French submarine Narval (“Narwhal”) was a pioneering vessel of the French Navy, designed by Maxime Laubeuf and built at the end of the 19th century. She was designed in response to a competition set by the French Admiralty and had several revolutionary features which set the pattern for submarines for the next 50 years.
Pietro Micca was the first torpedo cruiser built by the Italian Regia Marina, and one of the first vessels of the type to built by any navy. She was laid down in February 1875, launched in August 1876, and completed in July 1877. Details of her armament are contradictory, with various sources reporting a range of torpedo weapons, including a single 16-inch (406 mm) torpedo tube, a pair of tubes of undetermined diameter, and as many as six tubes. She proved to be unable to reach the projected speed of 17 knots, and so she did not see much active service. She remained in the Regia Marina's inventory until 1893, but spent most of her 16-year life in the reserve.
