In the cat-and-mouse game of modern maritime security, submarines have long been the stealthy mice, lurking beneath the waves and posing significant challenges to naval forces worldwide. But what happens when these submarines go to ground, hiding beneath the seabed to avoid detection? That’s the problem a team of researchers, led by Weichen Li from the Systems Engineering Research Institute, China State Shipbuilding Corporation Limited, has been tackling. Their findings, published in the Journal of Underwater Unmanned Systems, shed light on the complexities of destroying these elusive, buried targets.
So, how do you go about destroying a target that’s hidden beneath the seabed? According to Li and his team, it’s all about penetration and explosion. “Kinetic energy penetrators are more suitable to deal with deeply buried targets and enhance the destruction effect through secondary explosion,” Li explains. These penetrators are essentially high-speed projectiles designed to smash through the seabed and into the target. The team’s research focused on optimizing these penetrators, taking into account the varying densities and compositions of submarine media—the stuff that makes up the seabed.
But penetrators aren’t the only tool in the box. Blasting loads, which create powerful shockwaves, are also widely used. The team’s research delved into the intricacies of these explosions, examining how shockwaves propagate through the seabed, how craters form, and how the resulting blast cavities and liquefaction effects contribute to target destruction.
The commercial implications of this research are significant. As maritime security becomes an increasingly hot topic, the ability to destroy submerged, buried targets is a valuable asset. Companies specializing in naval defense technologies could find new opportunities in developing and refining these penetration and explosion technologies. Moreover, the insights gained from this research could inform the design of future submarines, making them less vulnerable to these very same destruction methods.
Li and his team aren’t stopping here. They’ve outlined future research directions, including strengthening basic research on penetration and explosion mechanisms, developing high-precision models, and creating experimental platforms to simulate submarine environments. This ongoing work could lead to even more advanced destruction technologies, further enhancing maritime security capabilities.
For maritime professionals, this research serves as a reminder of the ever-evolving nature of underwater warfare. As submarines become more advanced, so too must the technologies designed to counter them. The work of Li and his team is a step in that direction, offering a glimpse into the future of anti-submarine warfare.
