October 9, 2009 - School of the Boat- How long do we have?

[JTheotonio]

The Fleet-type submarine has about 35,000 cubic feet of floodable space.  Assuming that pre-dive conditions the boat was well ventilated. Flooding occurs right after diving and the boat settles on the bottom at 250' without enough power or air to surface. There are 79 crewmen and officers on board.  About 10,000 cubic feet of space is flooded.

How long do you have before you should begin revitalization, or artificial addition of oxygen and removal of carbon dioxide within the boat?  That is how long do you have until clinical asphyxia begins to show in crew members?

Oxygen would be about 17% and CO2 3%

There is a simple formula for figuring this out.  Have a nice weekend everyone.

I am going to rest this weekend so me neck does not get worse.  Monday morning at 0800 I have to be at a surgery center to get a shot of cortisone in my neck between C5 and C7.  They must put me under to get the shot.  So I may not be on the PC Monday.   

This was a blatant move for sympathy - No Gilly Sunday night after 20:00.   

[etkfixr]

Ouch, my brain hurts already.  Cruel, nasty problem for the weekend.  Anyway, all I'm up to for a Friday night is the easy part;  35,000 minus 10,000 is 25,000 of air left. (And dang that took a lot of extra fingers and toes).  I'll work on the rest.  Terry

PS How do you tell the difference between clinical asphyxia and how a boat sailor acts normally?  I'd venture to say its a slighting change at best.

[Darrin]

Terry,
When you run low on O2 what happens to those whom smoke??? and then later as the O2 runs even lower what happens to the crew before they become useless??  A fine representation of this is shown in the movie "Das Boot"

John, Sorry to hear about your surgery     I wish that there was something that I could do for you other then not drink your Gilly   OOOOOOPS I mean protect the Gilly supply from any one whom would want to try to take it from you

Be well my friend and thank you for bringing the school of the boat back once more

Darrin

[JTheotonio]

I used the exact terms from one of the on-line  manuals (hint) so that maybe it would help.  The formula is actually pretty easy.

So far Terry is part way there - yes 25,000 cubic feet of non-flooded area is left for the crew to be in.

Darrin - smokers would feel the effects sooner.  But by the time they would be feeling things maybe others would have a hard time noticing too.  Scary to be in this position.

While I will be out it's not rely surgery - they are injecting cortisone on the rigth side of my spine around C5 and C7 below the brain in the neck area - I just left myself open on this one - what brain! LOL

Back to a bloody mary with Gilly!

 

[etkfixr]

Found it.  The formula is: X=0.04x(C/N)  X is the number of hours, C is the volume and N is the number of breathing bodies.  So we should have 12.65822785 hours.  Terry

[JTheotonio]

  Bingo!    We have a winner!  This just goes to show you that space means more than you think in a Fleet-type submarine. 

It's been a while since we had a fully answered question here - so this was good.  While this formula is something that maybe only the officers might know - it still not a bad way to demonstrate how little air we have to breath once our submarines dove.

Well done Terry! How about a BZ for you!

[Mark Sarsfield]

Is this one reason why modern subs are bigger than fleet boats?  Or is it because the reactor equipment is so large?

[JTheotonio]

There are several factors for making modern submarines bigger.  Equipment - there is more of it and some of the stuff is bigger.  Reactors take up a lot of space.  All of your navigation equipment - which allows a submarine to stay submerged without sightings to fix your position - takes up a lot of space also.  you need a larger crew from 77 to 125 and up to 144 so you need more space for your crew.  Weapon systems, missiles, etc. Oxygen generators, water distillers (or what ever they use now), all are bigger.

The original 41 for Freedom USSBN's were pretty much designed around the reactors and missiles. 

Crew comfort is also considered now.  So you need a bigger boat for all of this.