You should really look into amount of USD,manpower and infra PRC is putting into all kind of mil related R&D.
In addition to what you say, there is also a very special man.
Rear Admiral Ma Weiming
The top engineer with the key to China’s dream of having the world’s most powerful navy
www.scmp.com
The top engineer with the key to China’s dream of having the world’s most powerful navy
Almost every research topic Rear Admiral Ma Weiming has studied in recent years has resulted in actual equipment on Chinese warships, his colleague says
Rear Admiral Ma Weiming, one of China’s top naval engineers, has been nominated for the PLA’s highest military award. Photo: Handout
Top naval engineer Ma Weiming, who has led work on a hi-tech launch system for future Chinese aircraft carriers and a quieter propulsion system for China’s nuclear submarines, has been nominated for the People’s Liberation Army’s top military award.
Dubbed the father of China’s electromagnetic aircraft launch system (EMALS), Rear Admiral Ma describes himself as a “teacher without any dreams”.
He is one of 17 nominees for 10 Order of August 1 awards to be presented by President Xi Jinping on August 1, the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Red Army, the PLA’s precursor.
To the big shock of USA, China next carrier will be using EMALS, very likely designed better and constructed and installed better than what USA can hope to have in USS Gerald Ford with lots of problems in EMALS and their AAG.
There is yet another major innovation crafted by Admiral Ma Weiming of direct interest to this thread.
He is the creator of
electric rim-driven shaftless ultraquiet submarine propulsion
China claims an all electric rim-driven pump-jet had been fitted to the People's Liberation Army Navy's newest nuclear submarines.
www.nextbigfuture.com
China all electric rim-driven shaftless ultraquiet submarine propulsion
July 7, 2017 by Brian Wang
China claims an all electric rim-driven pump-jet had been fitted to the People’s Liberation Army Navy’s newest nuclear submarines.
China is talking about putting the new ultra quiet propulsion system on new nuclear-powered type 095 attack submarines and Type 096 ballistic missile submarines.
A rim-driven pump-jet has a ring-shaped electrical machine inside the pump-jet shroud, which turns the vane rotor inside the pump-jet cavity to create thrust. The design reduces noise by removing the shaft and also creating smaller water bubbles , Making it even quieter.
Modern American and British submarines already use pump-jet propulsion, but Koh said the technology had not been adopted more widely because its design was complex, and just a few countries could support the technology with “a good deal of funding and technical expertise”.
Beijing-based naval expert Li Jie said China had put a lot of resources and people into development cutting-edge technologies, including the pump-jet, air-independent propulsion (AIP) for non-nuclear submarines and other measures as part of its efforts To make Chinese submarines stealthier.
“Both the ultra-quiet engine and AIP will help Chinese subs to elude foes as high concealment is very important to all nuclear attack subs,” Li said. “Quieter subs expressing enhanced stealth capability, which will help them to encounter surprise attacks when necessary ”
China has built Asia’s largest submarine base at Yulin, on the south coast of Hainan, near Sanya. The base features underground submarine facilities with tunnel access, shielding Chinese submarines that enter the South China Sea from the prying eyes of US reconnaissance satellites. That American warships and aircraft to conduct more close surveillance operations in the disputed waters, which are conven wholly or in part by mainland China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan.
The Chinese navy is likely to begin construction of the Type 096 submarines, which will armed with 24 JL-3 intercontinental submarine-launched ballistic missiles, in the early 2020s, according to the Pentagon’s annual report to the US Congress this year.
Rear Admiral Ma Weiming, 57, became a household name in China in 2011 when he published during a speech to accept a national technology award that his team had successfully developed a Chinese electromagnetic aircraft launch system (EMALS).
The chinese electromagnetic aircraft launch system has not been installed on any aircraft carrier. Ma claims his EMALS is more advanced than the US system.
Ma’s EMALS might be fitted on China’s third-generation nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the Type 003.
The US Navy uses pump-jet propulsor technology on its Improved Los Angeles, Seawolf and Virginia-class attack submarines. The U.S. Navy is also planning to use a pumpjet propulsor onboard its forthcoming Columbia-class nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines. The Columbia-class will use integrated electrical propulsion with a permanent-magnet motor turning the submarine’s drive shaft.
Developing a shaftless propulsion system is something akin to the holy grail of submarine propulsion. U.S. naval experts are skeptical of the Chinese claims.
If the China has successfully develop a rim-driven pumpjet propulsor that works in a real world operational setting, it would be a significant development. It would mean that the PLAN is making genuine progress in developing novel submarine technologies and is starting to catch up. However, US experts still feel that their overall submarine systems are quieter and more advanced.
Nextbigfuture had covered the electric drive for submarines about one month ago.
AND OF COURSE, WE ALL KNOW NOW WHAT WAS NOT KNOWN IN 2017.
THAT CHINA LATEST CARRIER EQUIPPED WITH 3 EMALS.
Admiral Ma crowed that Chinese engineers are “now way ahead of the United States, which has also been developing similar technology.”
nationalinterest.org
Admiral Ma crowed that Chinese engineers are “now way ahead of the United States, which has also been developing similar technology.”
by James Holmes
Here's What You Need To Remember: Does new engineering technology herald an age of Chinese maritime supremacy? Of course not. Carl von Clausewitz portrays martial strife as constant struggle between “wrestlers” striving to “throw” each other for strategic gain. That goes for acoustic one-upmanship as well.
Word has it that China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLA Navy) has staged a breakthrough in submarine propulsion. At any rate, that’s the word from marine engineer Rear Admiral Ma Weiming, a specialist in electromagnetic systems. Admiral Ma recently reported on state-run CCTV that shipwrights are installing shaftless rim-driven pumpjets in China’s “next-generation nuclear submarines,” meaning attack or ballistic-missile boats. (Click here for a layman’s description of pumpjet technology.) Ma crowed that Chinese engineers are “now way ahead of the United States, which has also been developing similar technology.”
If Admiral Ma is playing it straight—rather than hyping promising but yet-to-be-proven gadgetry—then the PLA Navy is poised to overcome a technological and tactical defect that has plagued it since its founding. American submariners long lampooned Soviet and Chinese nuclear boats for being noisy and easy to detect. PLA Navy boats remained backward long after the Cold War. Ultraquiet propulsion, though, would put an end to unquestioned U.S. acoustic supremacy, opening up new operational and strategic vistas before the PLA Navy while ushering in a deadlier phase of U.S.-China strategic competition.
The rim-driven pumpjet is an electrically driven “propulsor” that simplifies and thus quiets an engineering plant. Older technology typically uses gears to connect the elements of a drive train. Steam spins the innards of high-speed turbines. Turbines spin far too fast for any main propulsion shaft or propeller, however, so ships outfitted with traditional engineering plants have “main reduction gears” that step down the speed of rotation drastically, to speeds useful for the shaft that turns the screw and impels the hull through the water. Gears are noisemakers. Pumpjet technology dispenses with them, simplifying and silencing plant operations.
The design also reduces cavitation—bubbles churned up when a propeller turns rapidly underwater, leaving low-pressure zones behind the blades where water can boil. Cavitation emits noise that enemy sonar operators may hear. Thus it can alert hostile anti-submarine-warfare (ASW) forces, helping them find, track and target the emitter. Hence the allure of novel technology that suppresses cavitation.
Now, there are ample grounds for skepticism toward Admiral Ma’s claims. New technology remains a hypothesis until tested out in real-world operations. But at the same time it’s doubtful Ma was simply showboating for Chinese TV viewers. Rising competitors have caught up with established navies before, or even leapfrogged them in certain areas. The Imperial Japanese Navy defied expectations, devising the Long Lance torpedo that it deployed to devastating effect at Pearl Harbor. The Soviet Navy concocted antiship missiles and torpedoes that give the U.S. Navy fits to this day. Thus it behooves us to ask what if: what if China pulls off a technological leap of similar magnitude?
Set aside the question of whose submarines are quieter than whose. Boastfulness—the urge to be the biggest, best and most of everything, and to have others acknowledge it—forms a strand in China’s cultural DNA. Ma is indulging in it. But no one is going to hold a contest to measure noise given off by U.S. Navy and PLA Navy boats, and award victory to the quietest fleet. Combat is the true arbiter of military effectiveness—and undersea combat hinges on whether “hiders” or “finders” prevail. It pits a sub’s capacity for silent running against the acuity of ASW sensors and operators trying to ferret it out.
In other words, if American hiders remain quiet enough to evade Chinese finders, they hold the advantage of stealth. If acoustics has befriended the PLA Navy, then American finders have a problem. And if both submarine services can elude ASW hunters, then both they and surface fleets are in dire peril. “Peer” submarines could engage one another at close proximity in the deep, or strike against surface vessels without warning. Indeed, the surface of embattled oceans could verge on no-go territory. That prospect makes this thought experiment about the future of subsurface warfare worthwhile.
Suppose rim-driven pumpjet propulsors do pan out for China’s navy. How might commanders use newly elusive boats? First of all, they might afford nuclear-powered ballistic-missile submarines (SSBNs, known to U.S. submariners as “boomers”) precedence when installing newfangled propulsion hardware. The PLA Navy already operates a sizable fleet of diesel-electric attack subs that satisfices for antiaccess/area-denial purposes. They can make shift until silent-running nuclear-powered attack subs (SSNs) join the fleet. SSNs can wait. By contrast, the navy stands at the brink of fielding its first effective SSBNs.
Fabricating a new capability would seem to take precedence over improving an old but adequate one—especially if the nation’s nuclear deterrent depends on the new capability. If this logic prevails, how will the PLA Navy employ working boomers? To all appearances, it envisions employing the South China Sea as an offshore “bastion” for SSBNs, much as the Soviet Navy of yesteryear made semienclosed waters into protected bastions for its missile boats. Undersea deterrence, then, probably numbers among the motives impelling the PLA to transform rocks and atolls into fortified outposts, acquaint itself with underwater hydrography, and so forth. China’s Type 094 SSBNs or their pumpjet-equipped descendants could slip out of the sub base on Hainan Island, descend into South China Sea waters, lose themselves in the depths and dare rival navies to come into China’s “near seas”—expanses that fall under the shadow of land-based PLA missiles and aircraft—to hunt them.
Or if Chinese Communist Party leaders feel comfortable granting SSBN skippers the liberty to venture outside the near seas (though that’s a lot of atomic firepower to entrust to a naval officer whose loyalties might prove suspect), the Luzon Strait affords a convenient entryway to the western Pacific. Within the strait lies the Bashi Channel, a deep underwater thoroughfare into the Pacific. The weather between Luzon and the southern tip of Taiwan often works against airborne ASW; subs transiting the channel can conceal their whereabouts by diving beneath thermal layers that play tricks with sound. An ultraquiet SSBN, in short, could thrive in South China Sea patrol grounds—and beyond.
Second, PLA Navy commanders doubtless salivate at the prospect of ultraquiet attack boats. They could merge new SSNs—presumably the Type 095s under development—into their antiaccess defenses against the U.S. Pacific Fleet. They could package new with old units inventively. For example, they could station a picket line of diesel boats and older Type 093 SSNs along likely axes of approach from Hawaii or U.S. West Coast seaports. Speedy but quiet Type 095s could act as “skirmishers,” operating forward of the pickets. SSNs could snipe at the Pacific Fleet’s flanks during its westward voyage while scouting for the rest of the fleet, and for shore-based PLA defenders. They could mount piecemeal attacks against the American fleet, or even try to herd it toward the picket line for additional punishment.
PLA commanders thus could use ultramodern platforms to wring new value out of legacy platforms. Such an approach would harness the latest technology while staying true to China’s Maoist tradition of “active defense.” Active defense—which, as Chinese military folk remind us, remains the “essence” of Chinese military strategy decades after Mao Zedong’s demise—envisions luring foes deep into Chinese-held territory. PLA defenders stage tactical actions to weary enemies as they come. They fall on isolated units and try to smash them. Successive small-scale attacks enfeeble enemy forces, setting the stage for decisive battle on Chinese ground.
Think about the options that may become available to Chinese skippers as propulsor technology matures. Diesel boats could act as western Pacific pickets, or congregate in wolfpacks to concentrate firepower from multiple axes. Relatively noisy Type 093s could act as decoys, distracting American ASW hunters while Type 095s spring ambushes at opportune moments. And on and on. Commanders could combine and recombine forces in limitless ways—in keeping with China’s way of war.
Call it undersea active defense.
Third, the advent of quiet-running SSNs would let the PLA Navy play submarine-on-submarine games reminiscent of those once played by U.S. and Soviet boats. To date, lacking a peer to U.S. Navy Los Angeles– or Virginia-class SSNs, the PLA Navy has employed its submarine fleet mainly as an antisurface force. It waits offshore for hostile forces to approach, then does its best to pummel them with missiles or torpedoes. American submariners, by contrast, will tell you the best ASW weapon is another submarine. They view hunting subs as their chief contribution to high-seas warfare. Chinese submariners might follow suit if their boats ran quiet enough, and boasted sensors sensitive enough, to make sub-on-sub ASW an option. Or they might incorporate ASW into their operational portfolio while retaining the emphasis on antiship missions.
Either way, PLA submarine operations would take on an intensely offensive hue. No longer would the sub force be a mostly static force lofting antiship missiles toward adversary surface task forces. It would seek out adversary subs as well—and, if successful, project China’s antiaccess defenses into the depths in a serious way for the first time. No longer could the United States’ silent service prowl Asian waters with impunity. Indeed, if both fleets were comparable in stealth, cat-and-mouse games might predominate. This would be a dangerous business. Reaction times would be minimal if boats could only detect and track one another at intimate range. Proximity would magnify the prospect of collisions, accidents of other types, or even inadvertent exchanges of fire. Both navies and their political masters must think ahead about how to manage close-quarters encounters in the deep.
Recently there has been some speculation in the media regarding China adopting Rim-Driven Propulsion on its new Type 095 nuclear attack submarine.
www.globecomposite.com
By
Globe Composite
A new type of technology might currently be in development by China, that could lower the acoustic signature of submarines. In a traditional submarine, a propeller is attached to a driveshaft which is turned by a large engine or hydraulic system. These types of systems rely on a great deal of machinery and moving parts, both create lots of noise in an environment where stealth rules supreme.
In the "Silent Service", making as little noise as possible to evade detection is always the goal. To that end, a new concept in propulsion called a “Rim-Driven Propeller” or RDP (also known as a Rim-Driven Thruster or Rim-Driven Pumpjet) is being considered. An RDP removes the hub, driveshaft and gearbox from a submarine’s typical propulsion system, thereby giving the sub even greater stealth.
Think of an RPD as a propeller but with the blades attached to the outside surface of a cylinder, instead of attaching to a center hub like a traditional prop. The cylinder ring rotor is surrounded by stators, which creates rotation via electro-magnetic forces. Using RDP technology on a sub has the potential to significantly lower noise emissions, as well as free-up valuable space on the vessel to allow it to conduct other missions as well.
While currently no submarines are reported to use RDP systems, recently there has been some speculation in the media regarding China adopting a Rim-Driven Thruster on its new Type 095 nuclear attack submarine (Chinese designation: 09-V Chu-class). Most of this speculation seems to be based on an interview with Rear Admiral Ma Weiming, from China’s Navy (PLA Navy) on state-run CCTV.
Based on their interpretation of what was said in the interview, Popular Science wrote “
These new submarine propulsion systems may not just power China's submarines of the future, but give Beijing a true superpower's underwater armada”.
The South China Morning Post went even further and proposed that “
China is now on the cusp of taking the lead in a cutting-edge propulsion technology”.
Despite these claims, no hard evidence exists confirming whether China is near this level of submarine technology. It also seems doubtful that, even if it was true, the official Chinese state media would so openly report on the progress of their secretive nuclear submarine program. Perhaps it is a ploy by the Chinese to counter their reputation of having “noisy” submarines. To that point, a Chinese Shang-class sub
was detected by the Japanese Navy earlier this year, patrolling around Japan’s Senkaku islands.
The history of submarine warfare is an ongoing game of cat and mouse, where the hunter can become the hunted as soon as a slight advantage is gained by the other party. Although it is widely believed that the Chinese are at least twenty years behind the U.S. Navy in submarine technology, it always is wise to remain vigilant and alert.
www.nationthailand.com
