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pcvrx560
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How much fissile material, in kilograms, would, say, an Ohio-class submarine carry?
If it's classified, what would be about a good estimate?
If it's classified, what would be about a good estimate?
pcvrx560 said:How much fissile material, in kilograms, would, say, an Ohio-class submarine carry?
If it's classified, what would be about a good estimate?
Borek said:There is a HUGE difference between "sharing" a technology and giving out parts of the information. Amount of fuel doesn't tell you much about boat capabilities - it lasts much longer than any other type of provision needed. Boat sea time is more limited by amount of potatoes on board than by amount of fuel.
OmCheeto said:If I said more, I'd be arrested, and shot.
Well...except that the peak power of the turbines is published, so it is a good starting point to figure on an average output of, say, 50% (though I don't know how well a reactor throttles...) and a plant efficiency of 30% and calculate from there.Morbius said:Borek,
The amount of sea time is not the sensitive information the Navy is trying to protect.
The real information the Navy wants to keep secret is how fast the sub can go.
If you knew the reactor power - that would give you a big clue to how fast it can go.
...
E=mc^2 doesn't help - because you don't know the power and hence don't know
the energy that the reactor produces in the 20 years between refueling.
Dr. Gregory Greenman
apeiron said:http://www.nato.int/acad/fellow/99-01/maerli.pdf
In 1995, with 158 operating U.S. naval reactors, the annual burn-up of U-235 in the entire fleet was reported to be approximately 1.1 tons.117 Thus, as a crude approximation, on average each U.S. reactor used 7 kg of U-235 during that year of operation.
rod_worth said:Nothing I know of is 100% efficient, except for my Mom at remembering to mail out birthday cards on time; no, reactors are not 100% efficent. I 'think' in a real plant something like 15-20% of the energy/heat produced by the reactor actually is used to do work in the form of propelling a ship and/or producing electricity.
If the laws of thermodynamics "took a day off" I would create my own castle with 70 virgins and a built in Taco Bell from empty space because energy would no longer be conserved, cold would 'flow' to hot, I would break every piece of glass I could find to watch it spontaneously put itself back together, and then I would fly to the moon on a pink elephant that I gave birth to from the same nothingness as my awesome new bachelor pad!
My point is this, if thermodynamics "took a day off", I believe anything would become possible, which would probably include your 100% efficient nuclear plant! ;) You can consider c^2 as nothing more than a 'conversion factor' which equates a little bit of mass (m) to a lot of energy (E) capable of doing work. I too think it amazing at how much energy can be extracted from a well designed 'hot rock' (aka 'reactor'). Thank you Dr. Einstein for realizing that (1/2)*m*v^2 = (1/2)*(E/c^2)*v^2!
nismaratwork said:You get thermodynamics to take the day off, and you build a taco bell? I'd probably start with something with a little more umph. ;)
rod_worth said:I did say that my castle would come with 70 virgins; is that the "umph" you're looking for!?
You've obviosuly never been to the Pasadena Star Trek convention !nismaratwork said:Virgins are kind of a bore when you get right down to it.
mgb_phys said:You've obviosuly never been to the Pasadena Star Trek convention !
nismaratwork said:This is true, but I meant in bed, not as an expression of frustrated desires. :winK: Now, if you have anecdotal evidence with a vulcan virgin, I demand that you tell us all of the details in iambic pentameter, right now.
pcvrx560 said:Wow, thanks fellas. Now I feel like I accidently tried to commit treason by asking this question, haha. But seriously, I think the biggest thing I got from this thread is a visualization of how much energy can be contained in such a small volume. I've always heard "E = mc^2" and that "c^2 is a very large number" but now I can sort of visualize the size of energy/mass equivalency.
Another question: are nuclear reactors 100% efficient, in terms of mass/heat-energy produced? If the laws of thermodynamics took a day off, would nuclear power plants be able to convert ALL fissile fuel into electricity?
apeiron said:http://www.nato.int/acad/fellow/99-01/maerli.pdf
In 1995, with 158 operating U.S. naval reactors, the annual burn-up of U-235 in the entire fleet was reported to be approximately 1.1 tons.117 Thus, as a crude approximation, on average each U.S. reactor used 7 kg of U-235 during that year of operation.
Although that's only reactor heat to electricity, it doesn't include any 'efficency' of the nuclear reaction.QuantumPion said:Commercial nuclear power plants are 30-40% thermodynamic efficiency in converting heat to electricity.
In practice of course any fission reaction only uses a very tiny proportion of the mass.No nuclear reactor or bomb of any kind can be greater than ~97.4% efficient at converting fission energy to heat because ~2.6% of the fission energy is lost to neutrinos.
Like they did with the alien autopsy stuff?Dr_Zinj said:If some of you bright people decided to do an analysis, study and design on your own from purely unclassified sources, and posted it here; someone in the military might find it and decide that your result was too accurate, slap a classifiication on it, remove it from the boards and purge all references to it.
They can try - but they would find that my death star was quite operational <manic laughter>Then they'd show up at your door, demand all originals and copies, and force you to sign a non-disclosure agreement.
Dr_Zinj said:It's not treason to ask the question. In fact, it's technically not treason to merely answer the question; unless you're providing it to enemies of the United States. It would be a violation of a bunch of regulations, particularly Deparment of Defense regs as applied to DOD operated reactors, and the Uniformed Code of Military Justice.
If some of you bright people decided to do an analysis, study and design on your own from purely unclassified sources, and posted it here; someone in the military might find it and decide that your result was too accurate, slap a classifiication on it, remove it from the boards and purge all references to it. Then they'd show up at your door, demand all originals and copies, and force you to sign a non-disclosure agreement.
And that would really ruin your prospects for foreign employment or vacations for the rest of your life.
nismaratwork said:Anyone here bright enough to do that is bright enough to keep their mouths shut, as evidenced by the fact that such people are here, and they have.
Dr_Zinj said:It's not treason to ask the question. In fact, it's technically not treason to merely answer the question; unless you're providing it to enemies of the United States. It would be a violation of a bunch of regulations, particularly Deparment of Defense regs as applied to DOD operated reactors, and the Uniformed Code of Military Justice.
If some of you bright people decided to do an analysis, study and design on your own from purely unclassified sources, and posted it here; someone in the military might find it and decide that your result was too accurate, slap a classifiication on it, remove it from the boards and purge all references to it. Then they'd show up at your door, demand all originals and copies, and force you to sign a non-disclosure agreement.
And that would really ruin your prospects for foreign employment or vacations for the rest of your life.
Thermodave said:I think you're being a little silly. I've worked within the NNPP and I've never heard of such a thing. When I was in grad school my professor used to give us projects like what you describe. It's not illegal to do a paper design for a sub reactor.