Hey Mr Daestrom

 Hey Mr. Daestrom, I seem to recall that you were on submarines, if my memory
serves me correctly.



Not sure if you were ever on diesel subs, as I have a questions about them.



Watching a submarine movie the other day (Das Boot) and I was thinking about
the driving mechanism.



Now I am aware that there are both diesel and electric motors on the sub,
but does the diesel engines drive the props directly or do they drive
generators that then drive the electric motors to drive the props when the
diesel engines are running??



I know that the diesels that do drive generators to charge the subs
batteries.



Just a curiosity question.



Thanks

  RamRod Sword of Baal wrote:
...

A quick search on google resulted in this webpage....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine

To summarize, both ways were used. Early designs had the diesel and
electric both driving the prop. They used a clutch to disengage the
diesel when submerged. Newer designs use generators similar to a
railroad locomotive or serial hybrid car.

Anthony

 

Many thanks.

 

The 'fleet boats' of WWII and later were strictly 'electric drive'.  The
shafts were turned by electric motors controlled from 'manuevering'.  The
diesel engines drove generators only.

Just forward of the manuevering room was a large switchgear mechanism
controlled by links and rods inside manuevering room.  Along with generator
controls, the watchstander could tie any number of diesel generators to the
'battery-bus' or the 'motor-bus' to charge the batteries or run the drive
motors.  Boats had two main storage batteries that could be tied together in
various ways to drive the motors in series or parallel combinations for
either high speed underwater (well, not really very fast as the old boats
were not very streamlined), or long duration (expect to be under more than
12 hours).

daestrom

 

Thank you


Out of curiosity, what sort of DC voltage were they?

I suppose it varied depending on how they were driven, but I guess the
batteries had to have a maximum voltage.

Thanks