I served on a trident submarine. I ran the chiller plants in the engine room.

The ship is cooled by a chilled water system that is comprised of four 200-ton R-114 York centrifugals.

Heating is accomplished outside the engine room by electric reheat.

Each fan coil has charcoal filters as does the main air handlers.

Air is purified by the charcoal filters, O2 generators, and CO2 scrubbers.

The CO2 scrubbers have a unique odor that you never forget. As a matter of fact, my seabag is in the basement and still has that wonderful bramine smell after seven years.

Every so often you go to snorkel depth and evacuate the ship for a few air changes of fresh air.

That's the basics.

 

Mr. Benny

The noise problem? Solution? Can you explain or is it classified?

 

Sub A/C

My son's a Navy nuke with many tours on a boomer. I've actually been on his boat but only saw a small Carlyle looking 2 - 3 hp compressor. We couldn't go see the big stuff.

 

My son's a Navy nuke with many tours on a boomer. I've actually been on his boat but only saw a small Carlyle looking 2 - 3 hp compressor. We couldn't go see the big stuff.

That would be the R-12 plants for refrigeration. Big stuff was through the aft hatch. Yes, the one that you weren't allowed to enter.

 

Sure thing Benny!

 

took a tour of the YORK factory out in PA. back in 2002 while going to classes,and they let us walk around the NAVY area where the units for the ships are built.you know the size of one of those CARRIeR rack chillers with the 4-semi hermetics in them,and the evap up top withthe condenser below and the step controller setup.they had a chiller that physiclly that size was open drive,brass welded tube sheets cond/evap and was 300 tons and the instructor said it went for $1,000,000 per copy.then there was a refrigeration unit the size of a narrow floor Liebert stand up units,and that was $100,000 per unit and was no more then a ton or two on the BTUs.the testing stage he expalined was they take it down to a secured lake someplace in MD and run some depth charges under them mounted to a barge in the lake...ship it back up to YORK and check the running of the unit.this NAVY standard goes for all units coming out of PA. to simulate battle conditions on a ship.

 

REPLY: I know this is going to be a silly question, but, considering the cold temperature of the seawater at say 1,000 feet below surface...how come they dont design Subs using water-side economizers whereby the sea water is cleaned up first then sent thru cupro-nickel Coils for comfort cooling as well as for equipment cooling ?

 

Hey there, maxster, the end sheets are laminated titanium, at least that is what this manual says. I saw the machines on the York tour. Interesting that they all still have purges installed on them and there are liquid lines on both ends of the condenser so if the ship is either diving or surfacing, it would maintain the liquid flow. Cool machines as the whole thing is insulated and looks like a big stainless box when installed.

 

the evap side is laminated cuppernik 007

 

Dang, I though Al Gore invented sub cooling.

 

jrbenny thank you for your service. My father served in Vietnam and I am proud of him as well.

 

This might be some interesting reading also. It's older by the way like WWII info.

http://www.maritime.org/fleetsub/refrig/index.htm

 

Thanks alot for posting this. Ill give it a look thru. Dave.

 

and yes most of the other Items are classified this is information that I will never let out it's just an honor to know

 

It's been a few years since I steamed, but I don't recall water temps below 50F too often. We didn't spend much time in the North Atlantic.

 

I have taught alot of "bubbleheads" over the past couple of years. As stated, York centrifugals welded together. They use it mostly for cooling the sonar and electronic equipment. They said there wer two things that a sub could not live without, air compressor first, chilled water second. As far as noise, the controls are not electronic although they are working on that. They said changing the boats frequency (assuming reactor Hz) a little and banging on the hull is how they change the signiture.

 

Propeller frequency

Gen Set Frequency

 

and them blame pump noises


the worse i ever had was putting on of the Main feed pump noise vibrator together, it was an 13 stage thing that had about a million pieces to it, this was the noise muffler for the variable feed water valve into the steam genertors, and due to the variable volume of water flow thru it it made alot of differnt noises. man i hated that two days of heck

 

Main Feed Pump...

Haven't heard that in a few years. Oh, the memories come flooding back.

Some days I wish I was still standing EWS or ERS and punching holes to nowhere.

 

its was always better


to be using the main than the stand by
heheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheh

not me, althought i would loved to get a look inside the Seawolf, or even the newer new fast attacks they have coming out, with compartmentalized accessories systems,
I went thru two differnt reactor refuelings, ( one at school in Hartford CT,)those were nightmares of paperwork, had to pull the CRDM motors out of the reactor, man that was fun, but hot, heck i was sweating inside that suit and my glasses fogged up.

they sent me once to work on MS1 steam valve
the only problem was it was stored up on the shore some where in a wearhouse.
the worse part was when i found it,...........................
it had 18 redtags hanging on it. there was no way to work on it thru all the paperwork.

 

I enjoyed patrols. Didn't like the lack of sleep at times, but I survived.

Biggest evolution I undertook was an IX resin replacement while in dry dock. While I was on duty as lead shift mechanic, the watch team burped the float into ERML bilge. Can you say "radioactive spill in the engine room"? That was a fun critique. Not. Fortunately, I wasn't on watch when it occurred. PO benny was not in the vicinity nor was he involved in the evolution. He was participating in clean up ship as directed by the duty chief.

My chief taught me well.

The engineer knew better. LOL.

 

which coast?

where were you ported?
I got stuck being in Groton New london. and spent four years in winter conditions

every summer we had to go do an Unitas run to south americas and its was cold down there in winter time

I did get some time off and worked for 38N at SIMA in groton
I got to see the SSN Philadelipha come in with out its tow tha ray
seems it was wraped around a propellar of that russian sub that came floating up inside us waters off charleston in the 80's with an large cable around its prop
the news said it was an phone cable
however there aint no underwater phone cables that far south at that time

maybe today, but not then

 

Kings Bay. We just made circles in a stealth like mode. Nothing exciting except a port call in Halifax and Puerto Rico.

And that certainly wasn't a phone cable.

 

I was on Cumberland Island around 1991. Talking with a ranger and he said 'Check it out' and pointed to the river. There was a trident putting out to sea. I remember a few things-those things are HUGE(as jrbenny mentions) I think you could put a WWII diesel boat inside one of those boomers. Also, there was a swarm of little boats moving around the sub. With binocs I could see soldiers in the little boats. Ranger said they were Marines and heard that their rifles weren't for show, they were loaded. Said security was a big deal. I remember thinking I hope they take security serious around those things. The ranger also said it was always a surprise-they don't go around telling people when one of those sails. Don't know how much of what the ranger said was true, but I do know those boats are big! If you like sub stuff read Blindmans Bluff by Sherry Sontag.

 

Habitability was an important factor in the fleet boats. The designs were the first to be air conditioned, though crew comfort had nothing to do with this addition. The air conditioning was installed because of the great increase in the amount of electronic equipment installed in these boats. Electronics and water don't mix well, and without air conditioning submarines become very humid, with condensation dripping from the inside of the hull. The fact that the air conditioning made the crew more comfortable was a nice side effect, but it was really there for the electronics.

I copied the above from a site that talks about the WW2 fleetboats, as for not much of a heat load you must consider all of the men, 2 red hot huge diesels, air compressors, the generators and battery charging heats up the battery, cooking, lighting, the oxygen candles, hydraulic pumps . . . you can only imagine the heat load not mentioned here. I'm sure that less than 15 tons of AC was a spot cooling for the electronics and if swabs were lucky enough to have to work near them, their shirts may have dried out by the end of their watch. I cannot speak for other class boats but the 608 class nuke boat had a dedicated electronic cooling system for the ships internal navagation system. It was a auxilliary seawater to fresh water loop heat exchanger arrangement.

Stickerhead, were the bubbleheads good students? Changing the Freq refers to changing the frequency of the turbine generators output frequency from 60Hz to 50Hz (Russian sub operational Hz). As I remember it the reactor is a heat source, and is shielded so well that back in the '80s when I rode them, radiation emissions from the Rx was undetectable from outside the pressure hull. Our loudest noise was from the primary coolant pump disch check valves slamming open when the skipper put the pedal to the metal. Additional pumps would start to cool the Rx and their respective ck vlvs would open, we had six on the SSBN611 (about the size of a small sewer lid).
Those were the exciting days now I drive to work and keep a chemical plant comfortable and "pet" a few Vilter, Frick, Sullair and FES chillers Mon - Fri. You know you have to talk to the chillers if you want them to run through the weekend without any OT calls.

 

More great reasons to be silent and deadly.

 

To each, his own. I like weather, myself.

But as you undoubtedly know, the carrier task forces almost always have a sub or two in our escort. Makes for a nice feeling. If you're riding the number one prime target for the bad guys. Flyguys in the sky, surface ships all around, and the bubble-heads down below keeping an ear out for anything we might miss.

It was always my hope that our escorts down below WERE silent and deadly and if it ever came to the s*it hitting the fan, that'd they'd keep the bad guys off our a**.

At least long enough for us to launch.

That was the idea during the cold war. When the possibility of a nuke war was a real threat. I wonder how many folks know that the Russian powers that be back in Moscow in those days, at least up thru the late 80's/early 90's, used to take a vote every year to decide whether or not to launch a first nuclear strike.

Anyway, the game plan at the time was that if THE WORD came down, our submariner escorts would be ordered to beat feet away from us ... NOW. And the sub killers would commence a nuclear depth charge around us in a pattern calculated to kill anything within attack launch distance, plus some. Then the escorts were to deliberately place themselves in harms way and take any blows that were aimed at us in case anything still remained that was able to launch weapons. And the carrier was to focus on launching everything with attack capabilities before it got zapped.

We pretty much figured we'd get zapped. Even drilled for the event.

Chuckle, I was a damage control locker leader and during one drill, where we were simulating having received several conventional missle hits and a near by tactical nuke having gone off, making us glow a mite. I was going thru the routine of plotting hot spots (radioactive areas, for those who don't know) that our counter measures had not been able to wash away, and getting reports on who within my repair locker had received maximum dosage and so would be sent to deep shelter while a fresh man assumed his duties (decontaminating, fighting fires, etc). When a kid asked me, "Hey, Senior Chief ! What happens when we run out of guys who haven't already received max dosage?" I laughed and told him that I just raised the max allowable dosage and we'd cycle through all of em again. Then, again, if necessary.

Kid gave me a hurt puppy dog look. And asked, "But wouldn't that mean some or all of us might end up receiving lethal doses?"

I laughed again and asked him what in the world did he want? To live forever? Heck, the idea was to get the ship into position and to get those attack aircraft launched. The drill wasn't so much a drill about how to keep the guys alive .... it was all about ensuring they died slow enough so the ship could complete it mission first ... launch those aircraft. THEN, we'd do what we could to save as many crew member lives as possible.

Chuckle, he didn't seem to happy with that answer. I told him not to worry about it, it'd either happen, or it wouldn't. Not a durned thing he ... or I ... or anyone else could do about that. BUT ... if it didn't happen in the next couple weeks then we were gonna make a liberty port call to Pataya Beach, Thailand. And I told him that I knew a few local gals that'd take his mind off his worries. Them and a few cold ones. Nothing like a sailor having a chance to get rude, lewd, and tattooed to improve his outlook on life.

LOL ....