Adapting space technology to provide better air quality in Britain's nuclear submarines
New technology developed by the OU will be incorporated into the next generation of nuclear submarines, to ensure submarine crews have safe air to breathe.
Known as DAMS – Distributed Atmospheric Monitoring System – the technology continuously monitors the submarine's air quality and alerts the crew to any anomalies in the gases present.
It has been developed by a team in the Department of Physical Sciences (DPS), led by Dr Geraint Morgan, for the Ministry of Defence’s Defence Equipment & Support (DE&S) division and BAE Systems Marine Ltd.
'In many ways monitoring the atmosphere inside a sub is even more challenging than working in space, not least because it is essential to safeguarding a number of lives'The need to breathe good quality air is vital for the UK’s nuclear submariners who are often travelling large distances for long periods without surfacing.
A DAMS prototype has now completed a five-month trial on board a nuclear submarine. Its performance has led BAE’s platform engineers to approve a new design philosophy for on-board atmospheric monitoring on the next generation of nuclear submarines, the Successor class. This new design is based around the inclusion of several DAMS sensor units.
DAMS is one example of the OU's work in the field of technology transfer from space missions. To build the DAMS prototype, the DPS team used expertise orginally developed to create small, robust instruments for analysing gases in space.
DPS currently has over 50 agreements with government departments and agencies, academic institutions, not-for-profit organisations and commercial companies.
Members of the team have previously worked on the Beagle 2 mission to Mars, the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn’s moon Titan, and the Rosetta space probe that will land on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in 2014.
Nuclear submarines are among the most complex vehicles ever devised, patrolling the most hostile environment on earth 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
"In many ways monitoring the atmosphere inside a sub is even more challenging than working in space, not least because it is essential to safeguarding a number of lives," says Dr Geraint Morgan.
Images: © Crown Copyright 2008 and 2011
Publications:
- Nicoara, Simona; Tonidandel, Loris; Traldi, Pietro; Watson, Jonathan; Morgan, Geraint and Popa, Ovidiu (2009). Determining the l
- Wright, I.P.; Barber, S.J.; Morgan, G.H.; Morse, A.D.; Sheridan, S.; Andrews, D.J.; Yau, D.; Evans, S.T.; Leese, M.R.; Zarnecki,
- Todd, John F.J.; Barber, Simeon J.; Wright, Ian P.; Morgan, Geraint H.; Morse, Andrew D.; Sheridan, Simon; Leese, Mark R.; Mayna
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