Posted on Sep 12, 2016
Can a Navy Ship be powered by a full array of solar panels all over the deck, the hull, and bridge?
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Posted 9 y ago
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Are people forgetting that Navy ships go to war? What happens when the first 500 pounder hits the main deck? DIW, that's what happens. As others have pointed out, this assumes solar to be efficient enough to propel a ship with all it's systems aboard, etc., but even if you could it wouldn't survive combat. Geez! We've been a peacetime navy too long.
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LTC (Join to see)
Exactly my thoughts when I read the subject - eco friendly ships wouldn't last long in combat.
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As currently designed, solar panels arrayed upon a ship, as you described, would effectively preclude that ship and her crew from performing many seagoing tasks, and may, in fact, drastically inhibit the ship's ability to function in a combat environment.
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Nope. Not nearly enough energy would be able to be collected. Also, what do you do at night or in bad weather?
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Maybe the CO's gig! Good way to show the ship to your enemy when the sunlight glistens off the panels or blinds someone on another ship when doing an UNREP. Plus haze gray paint tends to block sunlight.
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Lots of solar panels here. Just being a smart ass. I seriously doubt it unless a game changing solar is invented, insufficient area for panels at this time.
The new Bechtel A1B reactor for the CVN 21 class will be smaller and simpler, will require fewer crew, and will yet be far more powerful than the Nimitz-class A4W reactor. Two reactors will be installed on each Ford-class carrier, each one capable of producing 300 MW of electricity, triple the 100 MW of each A4W
The new Bechtel A1B reactor for the CVN 21 class will be smaller and simpler, will require fewer crew, and will yet be far more powerful than the Nimitz-class A4W reactor. Two reactors will be installed on each Ford-class carrier, each one capable of producing 300 MW of electricity, triple the 100 MW of each A4W
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PO3 Aaron Hassay
Good Knowledge MCPO. You must of served on some CVN's. I imagine solar panels could be used on a CVN, with all that surface area, to power some things, as a auxiliary backup redundant power supply, if not primary.
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PO3 Aaron Hassay
MCPO,
My premise is simple.
I imagine if a small car, can get powered, to the same speed in time frame of a gas powered car, like the TESLA, then why not a Navy SHIP?
So in Sea Trials, I imagine solar panels could power some things, efficiently replacing normal large fuel tanks voids for smaller solar battery cubes? Ships are just sitting there day in day out getting a sun bath collecting huge amounts of energy daily possibly enough to share with other ships, in a new type of UNREP? as a auxiliary/redundant backup power supply, if not primary??
Positives:
(1) Less requirements for UNREP fuel.
(2) Less possible Mishaps due fuel.
(3)The downtime would be minimal compared other primary and auxiliary power gas turbine power supplies.
(4) The ship would operate with less sound signature
It seems using ship space more efficiently is an old problem, that still haunts, that is still waiting for solution.
This is quote from: http://nation.time.com/2012/10/05/the-navys-new-class-of-warships-big-bucks-little-bang/
""Gas turbines generating more than 100,000 horsepower and their associated fuel tanks must leave the LCS little space for armor, weapons, sensors or crew accommodations. Though the Navy has not said so, it is likely that these gas turbines have been the source of many of the LCS’ mechanical problems"""
My premise is simple.
I imagine if a small car, can get powered, to the same speed in time frame of a gas powered car, like the TESLA, then why not a Navy SHIP?
So in Sea Trials, I imagine solar panels could power some things, efficiently replacing normal large fuel tanks voids for smaller solar battery cubes? Ships are just sitting there day in day out getting a sun bath collecting huge amounts of energy daily possibly enough to share with other ships, in a new type of UNREP? as a auxiliary/redundant backup power supply, if not primary??
Positives:
(1) Less requirements for UNREP fuel.
(2) Less possible Mishaps due fuel.
(3)The downtime would be minimal compared other primary and auxiliary power gas turbine power supplies.
(4) The ship would operate with less sound signature
It seems using ship space more efficiently is an old problem, that still haunts, that is still waiting for solution.
This is quote from: http://nation.time.com/2012/10/05/the-navys-new-class-of-warships-big-bucks-little-bang/
""Gas turbines generating more than 100,000 horsepower and their associated fuel tanks must leave the LCS little space for armor, weapons, sensors or crew accommodations. Though the Navy has not said so, it is likely that these gas turbines have been the source of many of the LCS’ mechanical problems"""
The Navy’s New Class of Warships: Big Bucks, Little Bang | TIME.com
The Navy’s new Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) is not only staggeringly overpriced and chronically unreliable but -- even if it were to work perfectly -- cannot match the combat power of similar sized foreign warships costing only a fraction as much. Let’s take a deep dive and try to figure out why.
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MCPO Roger Collins
PO3 Aaron Hassay - Alternative fuel sources are the future, solar has been touted as the best, but the unstable nature of nature limits its usefulness until better collection processes come along. I favor hydrogen fuel cells or nuclear. JMO
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Yea, theoretically it can. This being said by no means would it be tactically advantageous, it also would be the most wasteful project ever undertaken by any government agencie
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PO3 Aaron Hassay
PO2,
My premise is simple.
I imagine if a small car, can get powered, to the same speed in time frame of a gas powered car, like the TESLA, then why not a Navy SHIP?
So in Sea Trials, I imagine solar panels could power some things, efficiently replacing normal large fuel tanks voids for smaller solar battery cubes? Ships are just sitting there day in day out getting a sun bath collecting huge amounts of energy daily possibly enough to share with other ships, in a new type of UNREP? as a auxiliary/redundant backup power supply, if not primary??
Positives:
(1) Less requirements for UNREP fuel.
(2) Less possible Mishaps due fuel.
(3)The downtime would be minimal compared other primary and auxiliary power gas turbine power supplies.
(4) The ship would operate with less sound signature
It seems using ship space more efficiently is an old problem, that still haunts, that is still waiting for solution.
This is quote from: http://nation.time.com/2012/10/05/the-navys-new-class-of-warships-big-bucks-little-bang/
""Gas turbines generating more than 100,000 horsepower and their associated fuel tanks must leave the LCS little space for armor, weapons, sensors or crew accommodations. Though the Navy has not said so, it is likely that these gas turbines have been the source of many of the LCS’ mechanical problems"""
My premise is simple.
I imagine if a small car, can get powered, to the same speed in time frame of a gas powered car, like the TESLA, then why not a Navy SHIP?
So in Sea Trials, I imagine solar panels could power some things, efficiently replacing normal large fuel tanks voids for smaller solar battery cubes? Ships are just sitting there day in day out getting a sun bath collecting huge amounts of energy daily possibly enough to share with other ships, in a new type of UNREP? as a auxiliary/redundant backup power supply, if not primary??
Positives:
(1) Less requirements for UNREP fuel.
(2) Less possible Mishaps due fuel.
(3)The downtime would be minimal compared other primary and auxiliary power gas turbine power supplies.
(4) The ship would operate with less sound signature
It seems using ship space more efficiently is an old problem, that still haunts, that is still waiting for solution.
This is quote from: http://nation.time.com/2012/10/05/the-navys-new-class-of-warships-big-bucks-little-bang/
""Gas turbines generating more than 100,000 horsepower and their associated fuel tanks must leave the LCS little space for armor, weapons, sensors or crew accommodations. Though the Navy has not said so, it is likely that these gas turbines have been the source of many of the LCS’ mechanical problems"""
The Navy’s New Class of Warships: Big Bucks, Little Bang | TIME.com
The Navy’s new Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) is not only staggeringly overpriced and chronically unreliable but -- even if it were to work perfectly -- cannot match the combat power of similar sized foreign warships costing only a fraction as much. Let’s take a deep dive and try to figure out why.
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PO2 (Join to see)
Depending on the type of ship, it would also counteract other programs that are used for tactical purposes PO3 Aaron Hassay -
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Hahahagahaha...you could power just the radar if you built the ship out of solar panels. I recommend people do some research. How many watts per hour are generated by a gas turbine in a modern warship? Then, how many watts per hour per solar panel. You would probably need several hundred acres to provide equitable power. Look up energy density and figure out the difference between a solar panel and a gallon of diesel. Try powering a single five inch mount with solar panels. Ridiculous.
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PO1 Edward Spencer
Actually, you'd be lucky to get enough juice at full sun on the equator out of the panels to fully radiate an SPS-48.
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Pretty Cool Idea but I don't believe that there are any Solar Cells quite up to that task yet. Also they would have to be very survivable first. That is an extremely harsh environment from the Sea Spray to Possible Battle damange
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CPO Michael Callegri
Most Yeomen know better than that. You should have picked a rate outside the Navy.
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PO1 Edward Spencer
Um... Even on a solar powered ship, there'll still be lines to handle and needles to gun...
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PO3 Aaron Hassay
PO1 Edward Spencer - Ah man.. did you say needle gun..i am goign to have f kn nightmare tonight...
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PO3 Aaron Hassay
PO3 Tiffany Meyers - I would rather wash solar panels which is not as hard on the body..and can be used in Civilian Life, then NNNNEEEEDDDDLLLE GUUNNNN>>i shake just thking about it
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In a word, no.
Let's assume best case. Take an Oliver Hazard Perry class frigate that is 453 ft long by 45 ft wide. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Hazard_Perry-class_frigate ) On a clear day on the equator at noon on the day of the March or September equinoxes, the maximum solar irradiance is right at 1,000 watts per square meter. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_irradiance#Earth ) Let's say that the horizontal surface area of the ship is simply its length times its width; it has an area of 20,385 ft^2, which is a little less than 2,000 m^2. Let's also assume that the efficiency of the solar panels on this ship is an unrealistically high 50%. (2,000 m^2)X(1,000 W/m^2)X(50%) = 1 megawatt of electrical power generated under absolutely ideal conditions. Given that this class of ships was rated at 31 megawatts (and that's just for propulsion, not electricity, heating, cooling, refrigeration, cooking, distilling seawater into drinkable water, etc), it would have to have a horizontal surface area of at least 31 times what it actually has. And, as the ship (or, more exactly, its surface area) size increases, the power needed to move it through the water goes up, so that 15X is actually an estimate that is too low.
Any solar panels placed on any non-horizontal exterior surfaces would produce a tiny fraction of those placed in direct line with the sun. So, if you exaggerated and said that all non-horizontal exterior surfaces (remember, we're talking about solar panels in the shade here) together produced another 1 MW, now you need to have a ship with ALL of its exterior surfaces covered in solar panels that is a minimum of 15 times the size of the original ship.
All of this assumes:
The ship will not need any power produced by solar except propulsion,
it will only need to reach a flank bell on a clear day at noon on the equator during the months of March or September only,
it will not move at night (batteries are a whole 'nuther problem!)
the solar panels it uses are 50% efficient
the propulsion system is 100% efficient (ie, ZERO heat is produced in getting that propeller to turn)
The numbers for carriers are similar, but not as bad. Covering the flight deck would produce 25.6 MW (about 82.6% of what the FFG would need, BTW). The Nimitz class carriers send 194 MW to the screws. You do the arithmetic.
( http://www.public.navy.mil/airfor/cvn71/Pages/FACTSANDFIGURES.aspx )
This is why our ships burn fossil fuels and split the atom to get where they need to be.
Let's assume best case. Take an Oliver Hazard Perry class frigate that is 453 ft long by 45 ft wide. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Hazard_Perry-class_frigate ) On a clear day on the equator at noon on the day of the March or September equinoxes, the maximum solar irradiance is right at 1,000 watts per square meter. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_irradiance#Earth ) Let's say that the horizontal surface area of the ship is simply its length times its width; it has an area of 20,385 ft^2, which is a little less than 2,000 m^2. Let's also assume that the efficiency of the solar panels on this ship is an unrealistically high 50%. (2,000 m^2)X(1,000 W/m^2)X(50%) = 1 megawatt of electrical power generated under absolutely ideal conditions. Given that this class of ships was rated at 31 megawatts (and that's just for propulsion, not electricity, heating, cooling, refrigeration, cooking, distilling seawater into drinkable water, etc), it would have to have a horizontal surface area of at least 31 times what it actually has. And, as the ship (or, more exactly, its surface area) size increases, the power needed to move it through the water goes up, so that 15X is actually an estimate that is too low.
Any solar panels placed on any non-horizontal exterior surfaces would produce a tiny fraction of those placed in direct line with the sun. So, if you exaggerated and said that all non-horizontal exterior surfaces (remember, we're talking about solar panels in the shade here) together produced another 1 MW, now you need to have a ship with ALL of its exterior surfaces covered in solar panels that is a minimum of 15 times the size of the original ship.
All of this assumes:
The ship will not need any power produced by solar except propulsion,
it will only need to reach a flank bell on a clear day at noon on the equator during the months of March or September only,
it will not move at night (batteries are a whole 'nuther problem!)
the solar panels it uses are 50% efficient
the propulsion system is 100% efficient (ie, ZERO heat is produced in getting that propeller to turn)
The numbers for carriers are similar, but not as bad. Covering the flight deck would produce 25.6 MW (about 82.6% of what the FFG would need, BTW). The Nimitz class carriers send 194 MW to the screws. You do the arithmetic.
( http://www.public.navy.mil/airfor/cvn71/Pages/FACTSANDFIGURES.aspx )
This is why our ships burn fossil fuels and split the atom to get where they need to be.
Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigate - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Oliver Hazard Perry class is a class of guided missile frigates named after the American Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, the hero of the naval Battle of Lake Erie. Also known as the Perry or FFG-7 class, the warships were designed in the United States in the mid-1970s as general-purpose escort vessels inexpensive enough to be bought in large quantities to replace World War II-era destroyers and complement 1960s-era Knox-class frigates. In...
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PO3 Aaron Hassay
LT,
How did you pick the FFG as an example. I was on 2 of them bad boys..the Ghetto Navy some called it. The GHETTO NAVY?
How does a TESLA sports car reach 0-60 without gas, created here in Bay Area California, as fast as a Gas Powered Porche?
The Technology has already proven itself as equal in power on smaller vehicles.
I do not know the math. But I know the reality of the TESLA. And Ships have such a large surface area.
How did you pick the FFG as an example. I was on 2 of them bad boys..the Ghetto Navy some called it. The GHETTO NAVY?
How does a TESLA sports car reach 0-60 without gas, created here in Bay Area California, as fast as a Gas Powered Porche?
The Technology has already proven itself as equal in power on smaller vehicles.
I do not know the math. But I know the reality of the TESLA. And Ships have such a large surface area.
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LT Leverett Hadlow
PO3,
The FFG was a small ship that we had a lot of. (It also happened to be the most battle tested post-WWII surface platform the Navy has had, but that's beside the point.) I thought the FFGs a good choice to use to run the numbers on ships at the small end of the scale as it is likely that more readers on this forum have at least a passing familiarity with it than just about any other ship class.
A close friend has a Tesla. It has a 150-mile range. At that point, it requires about and hour and ten minutes of charging. Great for city commuting and running errands around town; lousy for cross country driving. I have a 23-year-old Honda Civic that consistently gets 35+ miles per gallon which translates to 400+ miles on every tank full - a tank that only takes me ~10 minutes to fill up. Pointing out the Tesla has insane acceleration does little or nothing to support the argument that solar panels on combatant ships are a good alternative to fossil fuels or nuclear reactors.
(Why is a Tesla so quick? Check out https://www.quora.com/Why-is-a-Tesla-so-incredibly-quick)
A battery powered car that plugs in to charge is not the same as a car that gets all or most of the power it uses from solar panels it carries. With the Tesla, you are talking about an electric car - not a car powered by solar panels. The Tesla gets its power from the same place homes, businesses, and industry in the area get their power. Only a tiny fraction of that power is solar. Though they are frequently combined, battery power is not the same as solar power. This is an important distinction it seems you have failed to make.
"large surface area" is relative. If that surface area can't create enough power via solar panels, it isn't large enough. You also must consider a ship experiences much more drag than an automobile. That drag (moving the ship through the water) must be overcome and doing so requires power.
Actually running through the arithmetic would be more than helpful to you, and it's not really that difficult. Failing to punch into a calculator the numbers I've made available so you can see for yourself will only allow you to continue to believe there exists some advantage (that, in reality, does not exist) in placing solar panels on combatants. Restating your question eight times doesn't make the concept any more viable either. I've provided all of the references for the figures I used (except the wildly inflated 50% efficiency for solar panels - but that made the arithmetic much easier than the 18.8% efficiency on the MS Tûranor PlanetSolar.) http://twistedsifter.com/2012/07/worlds-first-solar-powered-boat-to-circumnavigated-world/
Referring to your oft-repeated "simple premise": H.L. Mencken is known for saying "For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong." I'm afraid that placing solar panels on combatants is likely the kind of answer Mr. Mencken warned against.
My last ship was an FFG. I didn't consider it ghetto at all. From my perspective, nuclear cruisers came closer to being hell holes.
The FFG was a small ship that we had a lot of. (It also happened to be the most battle tested post-WWII surface platform the Navy has had, but that's beside the point.) I thought the FFGs a good choice to use to run the numbers on ships at the small end of the scale as it is likely that more readers on this forum have at least a passing familiarity with it than just about any other ship class.
A close friend has a Tesla. It has a 150-mile range. At that point, it requires about and hour and ten minutes of charging. Great for city commuting and running errands around town; lousy for cross country driving. I have a 23-year-old Honda Civic that consistently gets 35+ miles per gallon which translates to 400+ miles on every tank full - a tank that only takes me ~10 minutes to fill up. Pointing out the Tesla has insane acceleration does little or nothing to support the argument that solar panels on combatant ships are a good alternative to fossil fuels or nuclear reactors.
(Why is a Tesla so quick? Check out https://www.quora.com/Why-is-a-Tesla-so-incredibly-quick)
A battery powered car that plugs in to charge is not the same as a car that gets all or most of the power it uses from solar panels it carries. With the Tesla, you are talking about an electric car - not a car powered by solar panels. The Tesla gets its power from the same place homes, businesses, and industry in the area get their power. Only a tiny fraction of that power is solar. Though they are frequently combined, battery power is not the same as solar power. This is an important distinction it seems you have failed to make.
"large surface area" is relative. If that surface area can't create enough power via solar panels, it isn't large enough. You also must consider a ship experiences much more drag than an automobile. That drag (moving the ship through the water) must be overcome and doing so requires power.
Actually running through the arithmetic would be more than helpful to you, and it's not really that difficult. Failing to punch into a calculator the numbers I've made available so you can see for yourself will only allow you to continue to believe there exists some advantage (that, in reality, does not exist) in placing solar panels on combatants. Restating your question eight times doesn't make the concept any more viable either. I've provided all of the references for the figures I used (except the wildly inflated 50% efficiency for solar panels - but that made the arithmetic much easier than the 18.8% efficiency on the MS Tûranor PlanetSolar.) http://twistedsifter.com/2012/07/worlds-first-solar-powered-boat-to-circumnavigated-world/
Referring to your oft-repeated "simple premise": H.L. Mencken is known for saying "For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong." I'm afraid that placing solar panels on combatants is likely the kind of answer Mr. Mencken warned against.
My last ship was an FFG. I didn't consider it ghetto at all. From my perspective, nuclear cruisers came closer to being hell holes.
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PO1 Edward Spencer
LT Leverett Hadlow - Interesting you say that, sir. I wanted CGN's in the worst way when I was in DEP before Nuke School (the last ones were decommissioned right before I left for boot camp).
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LT Leverett Hadlow
Consider yourself lucky. The one *tiny* thing that CGNs had that beat out all other ships was the cleanest air in the Navy - but only in blue water. As a corollary, they also had the clearest dark skies (no clouds, no moon, visibility from horizon to horizon, shadows cast by the Milky Way). Bluewater sailboats can compete, but the sails can get in the way. If a sub happens to surface in the middle of an ocean, the lucky few who get outside into the fresh air can experience these phenomena, but that happens rarely - if at all.
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