iranuke wrote:AirTech wrote:Nuclear submarines without electricity are possible - pneumatic reactor controls are entirely possible but as designing the reactor requires a knowledge of radiation which came from electrical experiments then I would consider this unlikely. Hydrogen Peroxide powered submarines on the other hand are entirely possible but of questionable necessity for a nation that has maritime superiority (one of the reasons England was reluctant to adopt the technology).
Nuclear submarines without electricity are NOT possible because you could not control the reactor. You could not control the reactor because all of the neutron detectors use electricity and if you don't know how many neutrons the reactor is producing, you don't know if the reactor is sub-critical, critical or super-critical. Not a good idea.
Non-electronic radiation flux detectors are possible but designing an intrinsic safe reactor would be safer (pebble bed designs for example)- no reactor dynamic controls required at all, outlet temperature only (too high - output drops precipitately). Most currently operating reactors are twitchy kludges that rely on dynamic controls on the edge of disaster (primarily since a high neutron flux is needed for plutonium production). Fail safe is better... The first generation Hanford reactors used pneumatic controllers built by Honeywell - so it is possible (but hairy)(and highly profitable for Honeywell. Electronic controls came later in the 1950's.
That said a hydrogen peroxide / alcohol power plant or a nitrogen tetroxide / hydrazine power plant (essentially a rocket engine with a turbine on the exhaust or alternatively a Stirling cycle engine operating at ambient pressure)would be safer for high power operation. (If you can handle a liquid fueled rocket, a liquid fueled submarine is no great stretch, but takes a couple of steps more care than most sailors comprehend).
