Research Summaries

Back CVN Speed of Advance

Fiscal Year 2015
Division Research & Sponsored Programs
Department Naval Research Program
Investigator(s) Howard, Alan R.
Sponsor NPS Naval Research Program (Navy)
Summary This project follows on from the work already begun in FY14 under the NSP - P14-0450. The goal of this research is to model the effects that different carrier transit speeds have on the rest of their battle group in terms of fuel usage and sustained combat operations.
Aircraft Carriers, as the flagship of their battle group, set the pace for alt ships in the formation. Due to their nuclear power supply, Carriers are not concerned with the efficiency of their transit. As such, they typically transit at speeds near the maximum speed of the collective group, requiring the rest of their accompanying cruisers and destroyers to run all engines in order to keep in formation. Non-nuclear surface ships are horribly inefficient at these speeds, as the rate of fuel burned per hour increases exponentially as velocity increases. For example, at 30 KTs (full power), a typical cruiser will bum around 4300 gallons per hour (gph), but only around 1500 gph at 20 Kts (split plant) [Transit Fuel Planner (TFP)]. By reducing transit speed to 20 Kts, the cruiser is able to travel almost twice as far before needing to be refueled. By reducing the speed of the carrier, and the formation with it, a battle group is able to spend more time in theater and sustain longer operations. Our objective is to recommend operationally realistic, alternative policies, practices, and metrics to leverage and enable additional fuel conservation and thereby improve operational readiness in sustained combat operations.
Keywords
Publications Publications, theses (not shown) and data repositories will be added to the portal record when information is available in FAIRS and brought back to the portal
Data Publications, theses (not shown) and data repositories will be added to the portal record when information is available in FAIRS and brought back to the portal