Chinese aircraft carriers - Type 002 'Shandong' and Type 003 'Fujian'

The Fujian has returned from her 6th season trial and now with the first clearer image of the Fujian‘s deck being released I would say this clearly looks like landing - at least touch & go - markings on deck!

(Image via @Jsport_三汽 from Weibo)

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Would the two new carriers be a brand new design or a continuation of the existing Fujian carrier? It is amazing that China can build two new carriers at once and have one already in sea trials, they are certainly moving forward at speed with the carrier program.
 
Maybe a first hint, that the 004 aircraft carrier is in preparations or already under construction at Dalian, but given this is already a deck segment I think it is more likely this is just a test module and not yet the actual aircraft carrier:

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If it is to be a nuke, hopefully future images will show the reactor boxes. If a nuke, I would assume two reactors, possibly four depending where China's reactor technology is at.
 
Hydroman said:
If a nuke, I would assume two reactors, possibly four depending where China's reactor technology is at.
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The Ford-class CVNs have two reactors (I assume for redundancy purposes) but I won't be surprised at all if the Type-004 uses three-four reactors.
 
NMaude said:
The Ford-class CVNs have two reactors (I assume for redundancy purposes) but I won't be surprised at all if the Type-004 uses three-four reactors.
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Ford has two reactors, one for each pair of shafts (4 MMRs and 4 AMRs) and you are correct regarding redundancy and the Fords are all electric drive, so the generators are the units which use the steam from the reactors. One reactor has plenty of power in case the other is off-line.
 
Hydroman said:
If it is to be a nuke, hopefully future images will show the reactor boxes. If a nuke, I would assume two reactors, possibly four depending where China's reactor technology is at.
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Did not the French just use their sub reactors in CdG? I would expect similar here, with perhaps as many as four being necessary depending. Alternatively maybe there is a more powerful carrier specific reactor.
 
If the Type 004 uses three-four reactors it will be the first carrier to do so since the Enterprise back in the 1960s. And I would not be surprised at all if it did NMaude.
 
There were plans for four-reactor CVNs after Enterprise, though given ongoing cost pressures they were ordered as conventionally-powered ships.
 
Josh_TN said:
Did not the French just use their sub reactors in CdG? I would expect similar here, with perhaps as many as four being necessary depending. Alternatively maybe there is a more powerful carrier specific reactor.
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Yep, the K15 from the second generation boomers Triomphant class. It wasn't ideal for a carrier, but it was a deliberate choice to cut development and maintenance costs; anchoring (lame pun assumed) the standalone nuclear carrier to the larger boomer fleet, all four of them.
Since France, as a medium power, has no money for something akin to a Nimitz production run of identical nuclear carriers; boomers took the role of expanding the "nuclear fleet".
 
Eight reactors on the Enterprise was a bit overkill in my opinion, the US Navy should have just put four reactors instead but perhaps the reators at that time were not powerful enough to power all the systems on board especially at that time when the Enterprise was the worlds first carrrier to be equipped with nuclear power.
 
From what I understand, the Ford-class reactors are smaller than the Nimitz-class units and I think smaller to a great degree but generate much more energy for the massive electrical power demand of the Ford-class.
CV12Hornet said:
There were plans for four-reactor CVNs after Enterprise, though given ongoing cost pressures they were ordered as conventionally-powered ships.
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The USN made a big mistake in not utilizing reactors for CV-66 and CV-67, boilers are a pain in the ass.
 
Remember, CVN-65 was very unique and implemented a lot of new technologies for the time and also was the fastest carrier in the fleet prior to it's retirement and it used a cruiser-type hull design, was the only carrier with four rudders and introduced phase-array radars (SCANFAR). Now the Ford-class is the next iteration of naval technologies.

Hard to tell what China is doing, they will probably implement whatever "naval" reactor tech they could get there hands on, seems to be the trend with China involving all things military. Us (the USA), our USN is always on the go globally, we have too. China has to keep up with us involving constant naval operations (in all regards), this will determine over time how good there ships really are. Time will tell.
 
Hydroman said:
The USN made a big mistake in not utilizing reactors for CV-66 and CV-67, boilers are a pain in the ass.
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The CVN-65 USS Enterprise was supposed to be the lead ship of the first generation of CVNs but the following ships were conventionally powered as a result of the massive cost and schedule overruns for the CVN-65 (Not surprising for a prototype) and then of course you had the money-pit known as the Vietnam war.
 
FighterJock said:
Eight reactors on the Enterprise was a bit overkill in my opinion, the US Navy should have just put four reactors instead but perhaps the reators at that time were not powerful enough to power all the systems on board especially at that time when the Enterprise was the worlds first carrrier to be equipped with nuclear power.
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She was experimental, to some degree. Her boilers were replaced with reactors 1:1. In practice I believe only six were needed and two were kept at very low power.
 
FighterJock said:
Eight reactors on the Enterprise was a bit overkill in my opinion, the US Navy should have just put four reactors instead but perhaps the reators at that time were not powerful enough to power all the systems on board especially at that time when the Enterprise was the worlds first carrrier to be equipped with nuclear power.
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Combined response.
Josh_TN said:
She was experimental, to some degree. Her boilers were replaced with reactors 1:1. In practice I believe only six were needed and two were kept at very low power.
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Exactly. The original plan was to replace boilers with reactors 1:1.
 
Josh_TN said:
Did not the French just use their sub reactors in CdG? I would expect similar here, with perhaps as many as four being necessary depending. Alternatively maybe there is a more powerful carrier specific reactor.
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Chinese have pretty good reactor tech especially with new small modular ones, they've built multiple experimental reactors like those in the past decade. They also have alot of experience with naval reactors, especially with those on submarines. They've been building nuclear submarine ever since the late 60s. Its unlikely they'll take a comprise like the French with their CVN, the Chinese are not short on money or tech.
 
Tomboy said:
Chinese have pretty good reactor tech especially with new small modular ones, they've built multiple experimental reactors like those in the past decade. They also have alot of experience with naval reactors, especially with those on submarines. They've been building nuclear submarine ever since the late 60s. Its unlikely they'll take a comprise like the French with their CVN, the Chinese are not short on money or tech.
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The trick is scaling a reactor properly. Something voodoo nuclear cross sections, voodoo thermal neutrons, headache inducing math... Something something dark side.
 
Scott Kenny said:
Something voodoo nuclear cross sections, voodoo thermal neutrons, headache inducing math... Something something dark side.
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I don't know about Chinese military nuclear-reactors but IIRC the US military nuclear-reactors use Oralloy* instead of 3.5-5% LEU. This results in a very compact reactor as the critical-mass is a great deal smaller.

*Weapons grade U-235 (At least 93.5% enrichment)
 
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NMaude said:
I don't know about Chinese military nuclear-reactors but IIRC the US military nuclear-reactors use Oralloy* instead of 3.5-5% LEU. This results in a very compact reactor as the critical-mass is great deal smaller.

*Weapons grade U-235 (At least 93.5% enrichment)
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Yep, Frenchies use LEU, probably the odds one out. It's more likely that the PLAN use HEU, but if they aim for greater serviceability then I can see LEU chosen instead.
 
NMaude said:
I don't know about Chinese military nuclear-reactors but IIRC the US military nuclear-reactors use Oralloy* instead of 3.5-5% LEU. This results in a very compact reactor as the critical-mass is great deal smaller.

*Weapons grade U-235 (At least 93.5% enrichment)
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And more importantly allows you to go 20+ years between refuelings. US refueling overhauls are very maintenance intensive, some surface ships had to be practically razed to the weather deck to gain access to the reactors. Subs need a huge hole cut in the pressure hull for access to the reactor compartment, which then needs to be welded back up and xrayed etc. 2+ years work.

The French use LEU, which requires a refueling overhaul every 5-8 years. Their subs have a hatch bolted onto the pressure hull instead of a solidly welded piece. I suspect it compromises their max dive depth somewhat.

I would not be surprised if the Chinese used LEU for their carriers and left relatively easy access to the reactors. I'd expect their sub reactors to be HEU, just to be smaller. IIRC the Soviet reactors were HEU as well.
 
I bet that the next new aircraft carrier is definitely not a CVN, if you observe carefully, there are a lot of irrational designs on the current 003 class aircraft carrier, one of which can prove one thing, this ship was originally intended to be designed as a steam catapult aircraft carrier, you will see that the length of the catapult at the bow is significantly closer to the elevator, if it is a steam catapult, the length is just right, if I remember correctly, this aircraft carrier was even suspended for a year, at that time it was verifying which is more suitable, electromagnetic catapult or steam catapult.
 
So I have reason to think that the next aircraft carrier will be a sister ship of the Fujian, and not a CVN
 

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