USS Seawolf (SSN-575)
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| History | |
|---|---|
 United States
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| Awarded: | 21 July 1952 |
| Builder: | Electric Boat division of General Dynamics Corporation in Groton, Connecticut |
| Laid down: | 7 September 1953 |
| Launched: | 21 July 1955 |
| Commissioned: | 30 March 1957 |
| Decommissioned: | 30 March 1987 |
| Struck: | 10 July 1987 |
| Fate: | Disposed of by submarine recycling |
| General characteristics | |
| Displacement: |
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| Length: | 350 ft (103 m) |
| Beam: | 28 ft (8.5 m) |
| Draft: | 23 ft (7.0 m) |
| Propulsion: | S2G, replaced by S2Wa in 1960, geared steam turbines, two shafts, approx. 15,000 shp (11,000 kW) |
| Speed: |
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| Complement: | 101 officers and men |
| Armament: | 6 × 21-inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes |
USS Seawolf (SSN-575), a unique submarine, was the third ship of the United States Navy to be named for the seawolf, the second nuclear submarine, and the only US submarine built with a liquid metal cooled (sodium) nuclear reactor known as the Submarine Intermediate Reactor (SIR) or Liquid Metal Fast Reactor (LMFR), later designated S2G. Her overall design was a variant of Nautilus, but with numerous detail changes, such as a conning tower, stepped sail, and the BQR-4 passive sonar mounted in the top portion of the bow instead of further below. This sonar arrangement resulted in an unusual bow shape above the water for a U.S. submarine. Her distinctive reactor was later replaced with a standard pressurized water reactor, the replacement process lasting from 12 December 1958 to 30 September 1960.
Seawolf was the same basic "double hull" twin-screw submarine design as her predecessor USS Nautilus (SSN-571), but her propulsion system was more technologically advanced. The Submarine Intermediate Reactor (SIR) nuclear plant was designed by General Electric's Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory and prototyped in West Milton, New York. The prototype plant was eventually designated S1G and Seawolf 's plant as S2G. Carrying a liquid sodium, epithermal, superheated, more powerful reactor and steam powerplant, rather than Nautilus' alternative light water reactor and saturated steam plant, reduced the size of the machinery in the engineering spaces nearly 40%. Her liquid-sodium cooled epithermal reactor was more thermally efficient than a light water-cooled system, quieter, and presumably better system, but posed several additional safety hazards for the ship and crew over already hazardous submarine and naval warcraft conditions. Primary system pressure was 15 psi (100 kPa) and the only moving part in the primary system was the liquid sodium which was magnetically pumped by electromagnets external to primary piping. While the noise reduction for a power plant having no vibrations or other noise from mechanical pumps gave the plant tremendous potential tactical advantages to any submarine, the potential list of problems weighed against widespread adoption of the technology.
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