25 Jan 2007
-
Astute on the Shiplift
BAE Systems Submarines Solutions at Barrow-in-Furness is currently building the Astute Class submarine. The company will launch the first boat on June 8 2007 and deliver the vessel to the Royal Navy in August 2008. When HMS Astute, HMS Ambush and HMS Artful enter service, they will be the largest and most powerful nuclear attack submarines ever built for the Royal Navy.
BAE Systems Submarines Solutions is responsible for the design, build and initial in-service support of the three 7,800 tonne Astutes currently under construction in the Devonshire Dock Hall facility at the shipyard.
Commitment to further boats is not needed until early 2007 but this is dependent on prices being agreed for Boats 2 and 3. The joint MoD/BAE Systems pricing activity on these boats is progressing to plan, and it would therefore be inappropriate at this time to comment further on ongoing contract negations, which are of course commercially sensitive.
Design and construction of the Astute Class is arguably the most challenging engineering project in the UK and has been described as “more complex than the space shuttle”, involving the production of over 7,000 design drawings.
Its nuclear power plant is more complex than a power station, with more restrictions placed upon it and with 98 people living and working in close proximity. Once deployed, Astute is designed not to require refuelling throughout her full service life - in excess of 25 years - and can patrol for 90 days, remaining undetected thousands of miles from home and hundreds of metres underwater.
Specialist engineers working on the design of Astute are undertaking complex engineering activities including:
- Nuclear engineering: providing safety and performance improvements to a state-of-the-art Pressurised Water Reactor that is fuelled for life.
- Systems engineering: integrating the thousands of sub-systems that add up to 100km of cabling, 23,000 pipes amounting to10km of pipework, and over 5 million lines of software code – and managing the supply chain, which consists of over 30 main suppliers.
- Marine and mechanical engineering: providing solutions for the propulsive power train, auxiliary systems and life support. Astute must be quiet, vibration free and robust enough to withstand a nearby underwater explosion.
- Hydrodynamics and control engineering: the design of the submarine hull, hydroplanes and control systems to provide control of depth and good manoeuvrability. The submarine must maintain neutral buoyancy and is literally ‘flown’ underwater.
- Human factors: ensuring that every system is safely operable and maintainable in all conditions by a relatively small complement compared with previous nuclear powered submarines.
