EMALS – oops?

Date Posted: 27-Feb-2009

Jane’s Navy International

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EMALS forges ahead, says General Atomics
Casandra Newell

The Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS) for the US Navy’s future carriers is ahead of its development schedule and preparing to enter phase two of high cycle testing (HCT-2), a senior executive at General Atomics Electronic Systems told Jane’s on 25 February.

Scott Forney, vice-president of the Electromagnetic Systems Division, said delivery of power inverters for the Prime Power Interface Subsystem (PPIS), which delivers power from the ship’s electrical distribution system to the EMALS energy storage generators, would start in March, with HCT-2 following in April.

Involving a dead-load launch, HCT-2 will repeat the test cycle performed at General Atomics facility in Tupelo, Mississippi, in 2008, but will include the new PPIS inverter and its advanced software. The company also intends to assess the launch motor’s durability by testing it inside a hyperbaric chamber filled with corrosive chemicals.

“The launch control system, the electrical system and the rectifier are all being delivered and installed. The system is really starting to look shipboard ready,” Forney stated. A first aircraft launch is expected in January 2010.

EMALS – which employs a linear induction motor to accelerate aircraft off the flight deck – is one of the key technological advances for the Gerald R Ford-class carrier programme, replacing the C-13 steam catapults used in Nimitz-class carriers.

Potential benefits include a reduction in the wind-over-deck required for launch, a higher sortie rate, smoother launch (leading to less stress on airframes), the elimination of aircraft engine and inlet steam ingestion constraints, a smaller thermal signature, reduced topside weight and increased reliability.

The system is intended for installation in first-of-class Gerald R Ford (CVN 78), which is due to enter service in 2015.

Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding secured a USD5.1 billion contract for detailed design and construction of the ship in September 2008. The first steel was cut at Newport News, Virginia, in August 2005 under a separate USD2.7 billion advanced procurement contract and keel-laying is expected in late 2009.

All seems well on the surface, at least.

Have you seen what plumbers charge these days?:eek::diablo::D
That estimate may be unjustifiable but not necessarily unrealistic.:(

The minimum cost increase to redesign the Ford because of this being thrown around… mind you… minimum.

Is $600 million. It could be more or less if the CVN is delayed and not redesigned for steam, depending on how long it takes to fix.

We can go back to fussing over nothing now.

What a lovely piece of nonsense. A CVN thats needing to be redesigned for steam!.

All thats required is moving the steam from where it is being made, in significant proportion, to where it is needed to be utilised. A big job surely, but, ultimately one that is just an issue of plumbing. Its not like there isnt going to be space left for making a series of connections from the engineering spaces to 1deck – unless you think that power would, in the original design, make its way from the alternator sets in the machinery spaces to the emcats by magic!.

I’m sure the contractors will try and charge $600mn for the redesign work to fit steam cats – more fool the USN if they pay it though!

The minimum cost increase to redesign the Ford because of this being thrown around… mind you… minimum.

Is $600 million.

Decrease C-17 order from 15 to 12

done 😀

The minimum cost increase to redesign the Ford because of this being thrown around… mind you… minimum.

Is $600 million. It could be more or less if the CVN is delayed and not redesigned for steam, depending on how long it takes to fix.

We can go back to fussing over nothing now.

Source?

The whole story strikes me as a lot of fuss over nothing. EMALs uses technology that has been proven elsewhere, and it is a matter of adaptaion rather than developing something completely from scratch. So they’ve asked for a few million more for development.

The minimum cost increase to redesign the Ford because of this being thrown around… mind you… minimum.

Is $600 million. It could be more or less if the CVN is delayed and not redesigned for steam, depending on how long it takes to fix.

We can go back to fussing over nothing now.

The whole story strikes me as a lot of fuss over nothing. EMALs uses technology that has been proven elsewhere, and it is a matter of adaptaion rather than developing something completely from scratch. So they’ve asked for a few million more for development. Par for the course. Teething troubles. If disaster does strike, the space and weight reserved in the design for the EMALs cats will probably be more than adequate for Steam cats, and the ships propulsion still uses steam in quantities similar to a Nimitz. I would be very surprised if Northrop Grumman didn’t have an alternative set of plans already drawn up just in case sitting on a hard drive at their HQ. Name a recent defence technology program in recent decades that didn’t ask for more development money. :rolleyes:

while it might not technically have been ‘laid down’, steel has been cut, construction has begun, orders have been placed and contracts have been signed

a redesign of this magnitude would be HUGE, at least a 2 year delay and all the costs that entails

for an already expensive program, yes it would be ‘the end of the world’

No it would not, the carrier is six years from delivery.

I find this puzzling. I can believe that there are problems with it, but “doesn’t work and can’t be made to work” baffles me.

From what I understand, the issue is not that EMALS categorically can’t be made to work, but rather they can’t be made to work with the allocated budget. Which seems to be the primary beef the author of the original article has – that the contractor might have deliberately pitch an unrealistically low figure to get the navy to sign on, knowing full well that once the navy is fully committed, they can hike up the costs and the navy would have no choice but to cough up whatever they ask for (within reason of course).

while it might not technically have been ‘laid down’, steel has been cut, construction has begun, orders have been placed and contracts have been signed

a redesign of this magnitude would be HUGE, at least a 2 year delay and all the costs that entails

for an already expensive program, yes it would be ‘the end of the world’

Whilst I’d dispute his point about an EMALS fold being unsuprising Lawrence is bang on about the problems of integrating conventional steam cats with this CVN being far less than is being portrayed here.

The redesign puts back the basic elements of steam cat technology that the USN have implemented for at least 4 decades. There is no-one else with the USN experience of installing, supporting and operating those systems. The really expensive bit, whole-life support, is already in place. The system is already spared up and the training programme well-established.

Fitting the cats themselves, plus a standard arresting engine, is actually only modestly different than the EMCATs. Running high pressure steam pipes requires more thought than running very heavy duty cabling, but, its not like you are running 13A domestic cabling from the alternators – to carry the loads required that cabling is going to be hefty!. Running pipework to tap HP steam off couple of heat-exchangers in the reactor spaces will be fiddly, but, wont actually present much of a technical challenge.

The first ship to be built for this system has yet to be laid down and it should be more than possible to adapt the design to take steam catapults at this stage.

while it might not technically have been ‘laid down’, steel has been cut, construction has begun, orders have been placed and contracts have been signed

a redesign of this magnitude would be HUGE, at least a 2 year delay and all the costs that entails

for an already expensive program, yes it would be ‘the end of the world’

interesting article about the possible failure of EMALS and what it would mean

http://informationdissemination.blogspot.com/2009/02/and-now-for-really-bad-news.html

a response:
http://blog.usni.org/?p=1460

and finally, another apparent confirmation in the comments

if EMALS completely bombs, well, I don’t know

‘heads will roll’ is an understatement

Whilst the failure of EMALS would be less than surprising and the decision to start constructing a ship to use it prior to its successful development is of the same level of intelligence that has put the USN shipbuilding programme in its current crisis this is not the great apocalypse it is being made out to be if timely and sensible action is taken (something that may be asking just too much). The first ship to be built for this system has yet to be laid down and it should be more than possible to adapt the design to take steam catapults at this stage. Inconvenient, embarrassing and indicative of the USN shipbuilding shambles it most certainly is, but it is not the end of the world.

Don’t worry guys, we Brits have a fall back position for generation 2 CVF if EMAL’s fails.

Ever at the cutting edge of inovation in its carrier fleet, BVT will be instructed by the government to start a Private finance iniative with a budget of about £500 to go out and procure some rather large Bungee cord :eek::diablo::cool::rolleyes:

one area that might have problems is cooling

i don’t know why it would be an insurmountable problem, but it is a known issue with large linear motors

how did i happen to come by this knowledge?

by waiting in line with no movement for 30 minutes while they waited for the motors on the rollercoaster to cool

so there, you have it, my expert analysis 😉

A carrier floats in available coolent. Can’t say that of the rollercoaster. 🙂

I find this puzzling. I can believe that there are problems with it, but “doesn’t work and can’t be made to work” baffles me.

Linear motors work. They work at the speeds needed – and a lot more. They work at the accelerations needed – and a lot more. They work at large multiples of the weights needed. They haven’t previouslty been made to work at the weights and accelerations needed in combination, & I can see that there are probably major engineering challenges in achieving that combination, but “can’t be made to”? No, I don’t see that. Maybe it’ll take a lot longer & cost a lot more. Maybe some aspects of the current solution will have to be re-thought. But “can’t”, I find hard to believe, unless the problem is in what the EM field does to other equipment on the ship. And even that . . . dammit, other big linear motors work on things full of electronics.

Agree, as the saying goes: extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Yes, I can see that causing a problem with cycle times.

one area that might have problems is cooling

i don’t know why it would be an insurmountable problem, but it is a known issue with large linear motors

how did i happen to come by this knowledge?

by waiting in line with no movement for 30 minutes while they waited for the motors on the rollercoaster to cool

so there, you have it, my expert analysis 😉

I find this puzzling. I can believe that there are problems with it, but “doesn’t work and can’t be made to work” baffles me.

Linear motors work. They work at the speeds needed – and a lot more. They work at the accelerations needed – and a lot more. They work at large multiples of the weights needed. They haven’t previouslty been made to work at the weights and accelerations needed in combination, & I can see that there are probably major engineering challenges in achieving that combination, but “can’t be made to”? No, I don’t see that. Maybe it’ll take a lot longer & cost a lot more. Maybe some aspects of the current solution will have to be re-thought. But “can’t”, I find hard to believe, unless the problem is in what the EM field does to other equipment on the ship. And even that . . . dammit, other big linear motors work on things full of electronics.

Got to agree with that – this absolutely flies in the face of everything General Atomics has ever released on the progress of the EMALS work. If the fundamental principles were so far off the question would be as to why they have been allowed to progress to the point that they have completed a, rather costly, production-scale motor to power the system.

As Sferrin states this looks like a bad case of jitters turned into a story and given credibility by recent poor performance in the US naval shipbuilding sector.

Until something official comes out (rather than just a blog, even if it is one of my favorite naval blogs) it is just rumor. :rolleyes: