New British navy ships breaking down due to Gulf heat.

http://www.military.com/daily-news/2016/06/10/warships-hit-high-temperatures-gulf.html

I hear its really not all that hot, especially on the water.

What happened to crazy "mil spec" were everything was designed for worse than worse possible case?

 

It's called S.M.A.R.T. procurement.

They get a cheaper offer, for a lower spec equipment - but ignores that it is no longer fit-for-purpose. Great says the buyer, but does not inform the technical dept of the implications. Boat is cheaper, great they all cheer and smile what a wonderful job we did and saving millions of tax payers money....oh wait..it causes problems, oh..didn't know that was going to happen!...bummer. Doh!!

Don't ya just love those pen pushers!

 

Well, it's the Royal Navy. IDK if they subscribe to "mil spec". Apparently, conditions in Portsmouth harbor was the standard reportedly used to design the ship.

If the cooling water temp. runs 90 F constantly and your machinery can only work well with cooler water, there's going to be a problem sooner or later. Lube oil runs hotter and doesn't last as long, and when the lube oil goes, interesting things happen to the machinery, none of them good.

If you designed a boat to operate only in San Francisco Bay, and then decided to move it to someplace tropical, expect things not to work as well.

IDK what you heard about the Persian Gulf, but yes, it's really that hot most of the time. The Gulf is mostly land-locked, and there's not much exchange of Gulf waters with the Arabian Sea, so the water just sits there absorbing heat.

 

Seems like a minor problem for those Type 45s'.... afaik they're all getting a large hole cut in the side to get an extra 200Mw motor in....

Of course we also remember the Type 21 frigates, which after 24 hour pounding of the Falklands with the 4.5" gun started to develop stress cracks through the hull sides....

The old Ark Royal was 4Kn faster in cool Atlantic water compared to the Tropics - down to prop grip

No substitute for prototypes put to extreme 'real' conditions plus. Maybe the ability to have virtual prototypes has negated this testing?

 

I think the problem goes back further than that.

Wars are seldom fought in the most convenient locations. The RN thought that they could avoid having to design their latest vessels for operation continuously in places like the Persian Gulf. Apparently, the naval leadership has miscalculated on that point, since it appears that a presence by Western navies will be required there for some time.

It's not like the RN couldn't design a vessel to withstand those conditions, they apparently chose not to, for reasons of cost, etc. In the days of a global empire, Britain could afford to station some ships exclusively in the tropics, while others stayed closer to home, in the North Sea or the Atlantic. Now, with only a handful of ships available and budgets much reduced, the ships are becoming more restricted in the conditions they can take for an extended period of time.

 

From when I spent some time in Saudi, the water temperature at the sailing club, was 38c and air temperature on land was regularly 50C, any metal surfaces became to hot to touch. We used to keep spanners for working on cars in a bucket of cold water.
Working on the airfield we put a thermometer on a chair in the shade, but surrounded by tarmac in the sun, the thermometer showed 70C

 

It would appear (Brexit etc) that a significant proportion of the UK population still believe we have an Empire....

Might be interesting to see how many of the current ships are actually fully operational. Problems with all 6 type 45s' (2 nominally in service), problems with the Type 26s', and an operational date of circa 2023 for the 2 aircraft carriers with real planes (F35 marine variant). NATO obligations must be a breeze....and the Baltic may well need strengthening in the near future.

 

Let us hope the RN fleet will not be needed in the Baltic. Current news is that four brigades of NATO troops are being dispatched to Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland.

 

I guess the old saying is true, they really don't make them like they used too. The two Coast Guard ships I served on were built in the late thirties and retired in the mid 80's. They were in two (maybe three, some of that class went to Korea) wars and served anywhere from the arctic to the tropics. Not to say they didn't have their issues but they were mostly due to old age and lack of spare parts.

 

Indeed...got the bean counters to thank fro that!

And it is not restricted to one naval power/vessel either:

https://www.wired.com/2011/06/shipbuilder-blames-navy-as-brand-new-warship-disintegrates

http://www.nace.org/CORROSION-FAILURE-LCS-2-USS-Independence-Naval-Ship-Engine-Corrosion.aspx

 

The writer had it right in calling it Galvanic Corrosion, then he descended into calling it electrolysis. yuck.

Just look back at the US Coast Guard's problems with the 110 foot patrol boats when they tried to extend them 10 feet. They had to take them out of service because of stress fractures. Some one didn't do their structural analysis!

 

Sadly familiar theme again:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/nat...l-boats-crack-up/story-e6frg8yo-1226447133244

 

WOW, no cathodes in the design specs???

Is that something that is normally totally left up to "maintenance dept" and considered beneath the dignity of college educated naval architects?

 

It is a case of the civilian side and military side of contracts (linked into design) do not merge well

 

I don't think it's that simple. Civilian ships corrode just like naval vessels, and both types use plenty of cathodic protection. Somebody dropped the ball in a very public fashion. Sure, a junior engineer might have overlooked this, due to inexperience, but it should never have gotten by a competent project manager.