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Chinese engineers are developing super-fast submarine technology using lasers as underwater propulsion, capable of reaching impressive speeds that rival jet aircraft.
Imagine a submarine so fast that it could outrun even a torpedo fired to intercept it. This futuristic vision may be closer to reality than you think, thanks to a groundbreaking propulsion technology that Chinese engineers believe to be the key to creating the world's fastest submarines.
The Chinese proposal involves the use of “laser propellers“, an approach where small laser pulses create explosions that propel the submarine to speeds never before achieved.
While this technology is theoretically possible, it comes with a major limitation: it could make submarines more vulnerable to detection, contradicting the basic principle of submarine warfare: operating in silence.
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How was the Chinese discovery
O jornal South China Morning Post released, in April 2024, the proposal by scientists from Harbin Engineering University.
According to them, the new technology uses lasers as a form of underwater propulsion, resulting in speeds comparable to those of jet aircraft. This technology was actually originally proposed in 1972 to propel spacecraft.
In the case of aircraft, the concept involved superheating the air beneath them with a laser, creating a plasma blast that propelled them upward.
Now the same principle is being applied to submarines. Harbin scientists believe that using lasers could not only increase the speed of submarines, but also make them quieter by eliminating the use of conventional turbines and propellers.
If this theory is confirmed, we would be facing a significant advance in the capacity for underwater locomotion.
How Underwater Laser Propulsion Works
The underwater laser propulsion process involves coating the submarine with a network of extremely thin optical fibers. These fibers are then traversed by lasers powered by a power source. the energy of two megawatts.
When lasers come into contact with water, they create a plasma that vaporizes the liquid, generating thrust. This phenomenon also creates a barrier of bubbles around the submarine, reducing friction with the seawater.
This method generates a force of up to 70.000 newtons, something unprecedented for underwater vehicles. For comparison, these forces are comparable to those generated by aircraft flying at hundreds of miles per hour. This technology could theoretically allow submarines to move faster than the speed of sound.
Furthermore, without propellers and turbines, the submarine could travel with much less noise, potentially gaining an advantage over its adversaries.
The limitation of cavitation
However, there is a big problem. Most submarines use propellers to move underwater. When a propeller spins rapidly, it creates pressure in the surrounding water, generating enough heat to boil the water and create tiny bubbles. These bubbles, in turn, burst and produce noise, something known as cavitation.
This sound is similar to the noise of stones being thrown into a pipe and is easily detected by passive sonar systems, which capture sounds in the ocean without needing to emit signals.
Cavitation is a nightmare for submarines trying to remain undetected. While the use of laser propulsion can solve the problem of traditional propeller cavitation, it creates another challenge: the noise generated by the plasma formed by laser blasts.
Even if the submarine moves quickly, the noise it would make would be easily picked up by enemy sonar systems, making it an easy target for aircraft and other submarines.
A dilemma for China
The new laser propulsion technology presents a dilemma for Chinese engineers. While the submarine's speed would be impressive, the noise generated by the propulsion would make the vessel extremely vulnerable to detection.
Noisy submarines, as experts say, are dead submarines. In underwater warfare, stealth is as important as speed.
Even if a Chinese submarine outpaced its adversaries, it would be easily tracked and would eventually have to stop — at which point it would be an easy target for aircraft or other anti-submarine weapons.
The fact that the research was made public indicates that the Chinese government sees this technology as having limited military value. When truly groundbreaking technologies are discovered, they are often kept secret, as was the case with the F-117A Nighthawk stealth fighter, which the US kept under wraps for nearly a decade.
The air conditioner releases cold air as well as hot air.
If the submarine will have this speed, imagine the same technology in the torpedo. Who will intercept it?
Who would have thought, the Chinese are developing Star Trek's photon torpedoes.
Firstly, in cavitation in propellers or in centrifugal pump rotors, the water does not boil because heat was generated, but rather because the pressure in the fluid intake area has dropped so much that in this state the water boils even at room temperature, forming bubbles that implode the moment they enter the high pressure zone.
I imagine that a vehicle that displaces so many tons of water has such great inertia in the water that at such speed, it is absurdly difficult to maneuver and avoid countermeasures even when submerged and moving.
Now if we think about a submerged bullet train, it could greatly improve the quality and safety of transatlantic travel, etc.
Submarines are already vulnerable to noise emissions, even if it does not eliminate this problem, this technology promises to give its owner the title of King of the Seas.
I thought they released greenhouse gases according to the leftist imbeciles?
Well, I also created some transgenic reindeer that transformed **** into plasma (hydrocarbons) and traveled at velocity MARCH 3 and when they got tired I would go to Morumbi to exchange the faggots.
It turns out that often the crossings of quero quero with **** sticks scared the obvious newbies with these crossings that resulted in quero dicks, and quero dicks!
Go figure this issue out!
Is no one thinking about the lives that inhabit the seas?