Quote:
Originally Posted by captainprid
Wouldn't sea water in the fuel wreck the engines???
|
The Uboots had separator filters. The fuel tanks located outside the pressure hull were of the "self compensating" type. That means that the consumed fuel was displaced by sea water. Of course, during navigation, water gets mixed with diesel oil although the difference in density and the fact that the fuel is taken from the top of the tanks (as opposed to car tanks which are emptied from the bottom) contributed to a generally low quantity of water present in the oil fed to the engines. Separator filters were still a necessity.
The real problem is not a certain quantity of water sprayed inside the pot (it was seldom done in the past in some high performance aircraft engines to lower the gas temeperature) but corrosion of the fuel lines and sediment deposits in the injector nozzles which will worsen combustion and, in the most severe cases, obturate them.
Since the heavy oil burned by the engine is still lighter than water (0.90-0.95kg/liter), as the fuel stores were consumed, a few trim tanks inside the hull had to be emptied to compensate for the weight difference.
