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Originally Posted by LoBlo
If that's the case, then why not swap out the entire reactor vessel. Open the pressure hull, disconnect the piping from the reactor vessel to lift the entire thing out, and pop in a brand new reactor vessel that had already been precertified by the shore guys and is ready for install just like swapping out a battery. Seems like it would be easier.
Thanks for the insight.
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This would be a major undertaking what would basically require cutting the boat in half as the reactor vessel, being the single most massive piece of the ship, is WELDED to and is part of the structure of the ship. If there is one thing on board that you do NOT want to have move, it is the reactor vessel and the primary coolant system piping.
This is why they have the closure head in the first place.
Oh, and as for swapping out a battery. That is a good solid 3 week job in shift work to accomplish that. This is with shipyard support. We pulled a perfectly good battery out of my boat to put a short Ohio class battery in a 688 for the purposes of NavSea testing. The differnces were remarkable. Instead of being worried about battery life from the moment the reactor scram'd, we could litterally run the boat off the battery and the SSMG's for about an hour before we really started getting worried. To those older 688 sailors, it was more than a doubling of the amperage available for the same size battery. We had to reballast the whole boat due to increase of weight.