DCNS Advansea all-electric surface combatant concept

[Triton]

DCNS press release:

Advansea concept ship, an advanced all-electric surface combatant

The timely development of good products meeting the needs navies are likely to face around 2025 presupposes first, knowledge of where we’re headed, and second, ideas about how to get there. The ADVANSEA (ADVanced All-electric Networked ship for SEA dominance) concept ship presented at Euronaval 2010 gives a first glimpse of what a next-generation all-electric surface combatant might look like.

To meet the future needs of Navies around the world, DCNS pursues a sustained R&D policy focusing not only on product improvement, but also on creative new concepts.

Advansea, a powerhouse of technology tailored to expectations
How to design and build a warship offering improved sensors, safety and stealth and compliance with environmental standards without jeopardising engineering/cost/scheduling requirements?

The answer, the design team believes, lies in three disruptive technologies and DCNS’s capacity to manage and coordinate their adoption by leveraging its expertise as both naval architect and a systems integrator specialising in surface combatants. The disruptive technologies are:

- Superconducting electric propulsion motors combining energy savings, reduced weight and size and optimal power ratings (10 MW/motor). Superconductivity is the property of certain materials whereby resistance to electric current falls to a value very close to zero at very low temperatures.
- Impulse energy storage devices that promise the instantaneous availability of large pulses of power.
- Real-time power flow management to users thanks to the convergence of combat system and platform management system technologies.

In each of area, DCNS engineering teams are working on the practical integration of these technologies in a shipbuilding environment.

In terms of naval missions, the aim is to design a warship for use in regional conflicts with a risk of intense combat. This means designing a ship combining improved means of threat detection, the capacity to respond quickly to such threats using gradual- and decisive-response weapons, and greater safety and comfort for the ship’s crew.

First demonstrators around 2018?
Although the ADVANSEA project described here is not intended to resemble in detail the product to which it may later give rise, it does help us to see the way forward. The first demonstrators may be available towards 2018. The project is also emblematic of DCNS’s determination to position itself as a world leader in all-electric surface combatants.

Technical data
Sensors and stealth
- integrated topside: multi-sensor system (comprising radars, planar antennas and communication systems) integrated with superstructure for improved operational performance and lower observables
- organic USVs, UAVs and RHIBs or similar.

Graduated and decisive response capabilities
- laser weapons, electric gun
- missile silos integrated with hull.

Nautical qualities
- reversed stem
- quiet, high-efficiency propulsor

Eco-design
- reduced environmental footprint
- reduced fossil fuel consumption.

Sources:
http://en.dcnsgroup.com/technology-innovation/advansea/

http://www.airgroup2000.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=227847

http://combatfleetoftheworld.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2010-11-08T18%3A19%3A00%2B01%3A00&max-results=20

 

[Triton]

Slides from DCNS presentation at Euronaval 2010.

Source:
http://www.alide.com.br/joomla/index.php/capa/75-extra/1615-as-cartas-da-dcns-para-a-euronaval-2010

 

[Grey Havoc]

Real-time power flow management to users thanks to the convergence of combat system and platform management system technologies.

Uh-oh.

 

[ouroboros]

Uh-oh may be right. Ship commanders which previously didn't have to consider weapon interdependencies and main powerplant/propulsion interdependencies will have to reconsider their choices. Will firing the main railgun leave enough power in the pulse bank for laser point defense? Will firing the laser leave enough power available for emergency maneuvering? I suppose there is something to be said still for weapons that are mostly independent of the platform they are attached to.

Impulse energy storage would probably imply a homopolar generator, which is essentially a flywheel with the capability to do a very deep discharge of power as a single pulse very fast. But a laser system usually needs more sustained power source. Perhaps a single flywheel with two different types of generators on the same shaft? Though to get anything like a fast barrage from the single main railgun, you are probably committing to multiple pulse generators as well.

Though the description doesn't rule out a SMES for energy storage, which could fit both laser and railgun power profiles. Committing to a superconducting motor means HTS type superconductors probably, and you already need a substantial cryocooler and liquid nitrogen capability for that, so it's only a small jump to go to superconducting wire feeds to the lasers and railgun, and if you've gone that far, then doing a SMES isn't unrealistic.

 

[Dragon029]

Real-time power flow management to users thanks to the convergence of combat system and platform management system technologies.

Uh-oh.

Quick! Reroute power to the forward deflector shields!

 

[mz]

100 kg projectile at 1 km/s has an energy of 50 MJ. With supercapacitors at 100 kJ / kg that comes to around 50e6/100e3 = 500 kg.

A 10 MW generator can recharge the capacitors to shoot every 5 seconds.

Of course there are issues around efficiencies and the velocities might be different etc but still, the mass is low. No complex flywheels needed, plain old low energy density capacitors will do as the energies involved are not that large and ships aren't that weight sensitive anyway.

 

[Lauge]

Of course there are issues around efficiencies....

Potentially quite serious issues. The difference between the kinetic energy of the projectile and the actual energy that needs to be pumped into the system to achieve said kinetic energy will be considerable, especially since no one has (as of yet) perfected a high-temperature superconductor. Also, the fraction of the energy that doesn't end up in the projectile ends up as heat in your system. This heat needs to be removed, although on board a warship, floating around on the planet's biggest natural heat sink, this is probably not a huge issue.

Regards & all,

Thomas L. Nielsen
Luxembourg

 

[mz]

Of course there are issues around efficiencies....

Potentially quite serious issues. The difference between the kinetic energy of the projectile and the actual energy that needs to be pumped into the system to achieve said kinetic energy will be considerable, especially since no one has (as of yet) perfected a high-temperature superconductor. Also, the fraction of the energy that doesn't end up in the projectile ends up as heat in your system. This heat needs to be removed, although on board a warship, floating around on the planet's biggest natural heat sink, this is probably not a huge issue.

Regards & all,

Thomas L. Nielsen
Luxembourg

Even if we assume double the velocity and 10% efficiency, we get 40x the energy usage, 2 GJ or 20 tons of capacitors, which is not a very large amount for an ocean going ship, probably the rest of the gun systems will dwarf that.

Then you could perhaps run into power problems though.

Aegis has 60 MW of power. If all was routed to guns, it could shoot once about every 33 seconds. An Arleigh Burke with 80 MW will shoot every 25 seconds.

Nowadays you can use different trajectories for successive shots to get everything on target at the same time. Perhaps then indeed a flywheel or lithium batteries would be useful here, to enable a "salvo". I don't know about the barrel cooldown times.

 

[Demon Lord Razgriz]

I'm assuming this is basically a French Zumwalt DDG?

 

[Triton]

Artist's impression of DCNS Advansea.

Source:
http://www.meretmarine.com/article.cfm?id=114402

 

[Triton]

Model of DCNS Advansea on display at Euronaval 2010.

Source:
http://www.infos-du-net.com/forum/266834-5-thales-pourrait-annoncer-suppressions-emplois

 

[Firefly 2]

It appears to me that certain elements of the previous Swordship design, such as the recessed gun, are reiterated here.