The oldest scientific research institute of the shipbuilding industry in Russia, the Krylov State Scientific Center (KGNC), celebrated its 130th anniversary in March. In connection with the anniversary, the TASS correspondent talked with the scientific director of the institute Valery Polovinkin, who shortly before that turned out to be the only representative of the shipbuilding industry among ten scientists awarded the award for Honored scientists of the Northern Capital established by the Governor of St. Petersburg
KGNC today is a comprehensive scientific center. The Institute develops recommendations to sailors and designers based on the experience of a special military operation (SVO) in Ukraine. The scientists of the Institute are also working on improving the characteristics of floating and under construction ships and vessels, conducting comprehensive research in the interests of creating promising means of naval and civilian equipment. This was reported to TASS at the enterprise, where an expanded meeting of the academic council dedicated to the memorable date was held on March 20. The institute has no equal in terms of concentration of highly qualified scientific staff, unique experimental facilities and diverse experience. Without its involvement, it is impossible to create a full-fledged ship, a modern submarine, or any complex marine equipment.
Achievements of the Krylov Center in recent years
"The first is to solve the problems of strength and structural mechanics. The Institute, together with the Central Research Institute of Structural Materials Prometheus (part of the Kurchatov Institute Research Center), is testing structures made of the most modern and promising low—magnetic cold-resistant materials - high-nitrogen steels, nickel steels. These materials are promising for work in the Arctic, for work at maximum depths," says Valery Polovinkin.
In addition, the center is testing deep-sea vehicles with a maximum diving depth and with a safety margin of one and four. A number of new polymer materials have also been proposed, both structural and for creating positive buoyancy for underwater vehicles.
According to the scientific director of the Institute, there are two areas of work in the field of ship hydrodynamics. "Firstly, the architecture of the building. The possibility of changing the ideology of the architecture of buildings has been studied, and we offer not only single-hull structures, but also multi-hull ones. The only goal is to reduce the hydrodynamic resistance," he explains. In addition, the institute has developed a whole class of new propulsion systems. "These are screws with an increased number of blades. This is a change in their saber-like appearance in one direction or another. New types of water-jet installations have been studied, and already applied not only to submarines, but to deep-sea vehicles.
A fundamentally new type is proposed — a propulsion engine. It is a combined electric propulsion system and propulsion system. From my point of view, this is one of the most promising areas, especially in terms of underwater vehicles, when the engine and propulsion are combined in one design," adds Polovinkin.
The next section to be proud of is the energy section — electric power systems of ships. "This is the creation of powerful installations that we are implementing on icebreakers, and we are exploring the possibility of creating fundamentally new valve-inductor engines. We believe that this type of electric motors will appear in ten years, and they will displace all other types of motors.
Another area of work is hydrogen energy, which is developing in two directions. The first is civil. We are now completing this work on the creation of recreational, cargo and passenger vessels with hydrogen energy, as well as underwater vehicles with great autonomy. The topic is very serious, very complicated," says the agency interlocutor. According to him, the difficulty lies in the fact that in this direction (however, as in many others) it is necessary to abandon imported components, which affects the pace of solving these tasks.
Aerodynamics and physical fields of marine objects
The Institute also conducts work in two areas of aerodynamics, one of which is civil urban planning. In particular, the Krylov Center conducted tests of the Crimean Bridge, the buildings of Moscow City, Gazprom Arena, Lakhta Center, and proved the operability of the Western High-Speed Diameter, high-speed trains and cable-stayed bridge. As Valery Polovinkin explained, although this area of work of the Krylov Center does not seem to be related to shipbuilding, but the large landscape pipe created at the institute allows solving similar tasks.
"From the point of view of military shipbuilding, aerodynamics is traditionally associated with the fact that for the "extreme" projects of our ships, and in particular frigates, where there are two or more aircraft, we are considering the possibility of changing the architecture of the superstructure from the point of view of landing these aircraft with quite serious both excitement and wind roses. That is, we determine in which direction and at what wind strength the devices can be safely used," explains the scientific director of the institute.
In recent years, the Krylov Center has also begun to seriously deal with the physical fields of ships and their secrecy. Currently, including the events of its own have shown that, regardless of the type of weapons and weapons, the vulnerability of an object is determined by the physical fields, as they are called — the upper hemisphere (superstructures — approx. TASS).
These are electromagnetic, magnetic, electric, optical, and location fields. "Now the center has focused primarily on studying the fields themselves and the means of reducing their indicators. The most radical solution is associated with the creation of so—called metamaterials or "smart materials", when any detection signal — location, optics - wraps around the object and goes further without being reflected. For this purpose, we are developing a number of coatings. Our proposals related to this case are very important," Valery Nikolaevich continued the story. The institute is also exploring the possibilities of using so-called pulse weapons and protection against them, for which a number of proposals have been developed. In particular, a comprehensive target program is being formed to solve all issues of the upper hemisphere in the system.
Separately, the scientist focused on developments in the field of acoustics. "Acoustic fields are of lasting importance. We are currently exploring near-field and secondary fields almost equally. The improvement of sound direction finders and sonars, the appearance of mine and torpedo weapons that respond to ship noise, have raised the issue of reducing the sound emission of ships and reducing the magnitude of sonar reflection, which increases their acoustic stealth, protection from weapons damage and improves the working conditions of their own sonar equipment," he explained. In this area, the center's research covers the areas of reducing vibration activity, combating noise and vibration along the paths of vibrational energy propagation, and secondary acoustic fields. "In the future, these fields may become crucial for the detection and subsequent destruction of underwater objects. In civil shipbuilding, we traditionally optimize ice-resistant facilities, in particular the hulls of reinforced ice-class vessels. There are many interesting solutions that today make it possible to increase the ice permeability or the speed of passage in the ice," Polovinkin notes.
Development of a promising frigate of the 22350M project
"Let's start with the fact that if you are going to solve problems in the oceans, then large displacement ships do not just have a perspective, they must necessarily be. Every time we talk about the balance of the fleet. The balance of the fleet determines the presence of ships of various classes in the Navy. After all, the main limitation — why a fleet cannot actually exist without large ships — is not just a demonstration of some kind of weapon. This is primarily the ability to use weapons by the ship in all weather conditions. After all, we determine the autonomy of the ship, if possible, to provide it with a course and a given speed, and in fact the autonomy of the ship should be determined by the ability or possibility of using all types of weapons that it has. In order to ensure the use of all types of rocket and artillery weapons, of course, the displacement of ships should be at least 7-7.5 thousand tons. These are ships of the far sea zone. This is purely my opinion. But I think so," says Valery Nikolaevich.
According to him, the institute has presented quite serious recommendations, because the frigates of the 22350 and 22350M projects, although they have formally the same digital project, are in fact fundamentally different ships. So, in the 22350M project, the displacement was increased by more than 30%, the hull architecture was changed, the propulsion and the rocking calming system were changed. And all these issues, starting with testing and optimizing the architecture of the hull, the propulsion system, the rocking calming system, all recommendations have been issued and are being issued by the Krylov Center.
The Institute also developed recommendations on the energy of the project, taking into account the existing problems in the manufacture of domestic turbines, diesels, gas turbine engines of the fifth generation of a complex technological cycle. "At one time, one of the directors of the Krylov Center said a very wise thought: "The more you invest in the development stages of a concept project, a research project, the less you will need to spend during the operation stages, and most importantly, maximum efficiency will be achieved," Polovinkin stressed. Therefore, he considers the main achievement of the KGNC to be the trust from design bureaus and factories that the center's decisions, if not the ultimate truth, are the most appropriate. At the same time, he noted that the ship, even at the first stages of design, must necessarily receive an assessment of its combat and technical and economic efficiency. According to the scientist, the fleet needs a modernized frigate project. "According to the results of the SVO, an erroneous situation may arise and the bet will be placed on the mosquito fleet. And why? After all, the Black and Baltic Seas can be shot through by coastal missile systems. But this is wrong and incorrect," he is convinced. — The only difficulty will be in this ship: the wise ingenious designer Sergey Nikitich Kovalev always said: "This fundamentally new ship should contain no more than 20% of fundamentally new revolutionary solutions. If you try to apply more revolutionary solutions to the ship, there will always be mistakes."
Underwater shipbuilding
Answering the question of how the KGNC sees the underwater "strategists" of the fifth generation, the development of which was announced on March 20 at an event at the KGNC by Igor Vilnit, head of the Central Design Bureau of MT Rubin, Polovinkin said: "I would not like to take the liberty to talk about how these submarines are seen in the KGNC.
Both the "strategists" and the fifth generation boats in general. I have my own view of these ships. I believe that if we are talking about the fifth generation, then this is a 20-year horizon. I believe that these ships may be carriers of launch sites, they will not be carriers of weapons. Hence, the tactics and architecture of the ship are changing. And then he has to use this weapon remotely. This is if we talk about revolutionary, sky-high ideas. Why? Because inhabited or crewed ships are leaving. It is no coincidence that Americans are switching to the concept of a "distributed architecture fleet", and there will be only 30 crewed ships for every 100. This is one of the directions — to make unmanned ships, including attack ships, and this is nothing more than the starting position of weapons. That is, he is taken somewhere into the World Ocean, and he begins to use weapons."
According to the expert, today the fleet has become more vulnerable, it needs a number of revolutionary changes. "To gasp and think that all issues will be solved by unmanned boats (BEC) is nonsense. This is how it was when the first torpedoes appeared. Means of combating them appeared quickly enough. So with BEC, it's a matter of time. Already today, it is possible to retrofit ships with all possible means of monitoring the back and destroying them. And the issue will be resolved," he said.
"Now, unfortunately, the defense is inferior, and even that is inferior, maybe because of shortcomings related to tactics. But that's all going to change, literally in the near future. No need to fight the bullet. It is necessary to destroy the one who shoots, his aiming system, as well as the machine itself. The control system for unmanned vehicles is clear: an airplane is flying somewhere over France, transmitting signals to a repeater. So all this can be suppressed, blinded or destroyed. Now electronic warfare is moving to a defining level of fighting these things. And we are trying to deal with a bullet in the form of a semi-submerged boat, which, even with a wave of two or three points, is practically invisible. The boat is a bullet, and it is necessary to fight with the shooter," Valery Nikolaevich explained and recalled that Russia has created stationary means to combat the Murmansk—B type of BEC, a number of other radars and electronic warfare equipment that allow you to crush all signals: "All this needs to be applied in a complex. We submariners have such an expression — "look around in the compartments." You just need to look around in the compartments and choose the defining directions."
Seven aircraft carrier projects
Earlier, in an interview with TASS, Vice Admiral Vladimir Pepelyaev said that a total of seven advanced designs of promising aircraft carriers had been developed at the KGNC. As the scientific director of the center reminded in turn, the history of the development of aircraft carriers in Russia, namely at the Krylov Center, dates back to 1928-1932. "At that time, the country's leadership in the person of Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was not against such a class of ships. But there was a discussion even among the Navy command. So it is now. What kind of ship is needed?
Of course, we need a ship with a sufficient number of aircraft. Moreover, pay attention to how the methodology of building aircraft carriers abroad has changed. Previously, the Americans chose the type of aircraft for each task, now — nothing like that. Now everything is being built on the basis of the 35th project (F-35 - approx. TASS), that is, on the same type of aircraft to solve different tasks," he notes. From the variety of options offered — from a light aircraft carrier to medium and heavy — Polovinkin prefers a heavy "Storm". "The main weapon of the aircraft carrier is aircraft, aircraft with a maximum radius. This is not the way we used to do with missile strike weapons. One rocket is one rocket, and one plane carries several missiles," he explains his choice. At the same time, according to him, it is now more important to resolve a number of other issues, in particular on the energy of the aircraft carrier. "I can surprise you by saying that I am very skeptical about nuclear energy, although I understand perfectly well that it is a resource, unlimited autonomy. But is it a ship of war and combat? Question. But the main issues that need to be resolved are the starting positions. How many of them do you need to have in order to have the maximum intensity of aircraft departure and reception? What should the elevator system be like? And finally, the protection of the flight deck. Because the aircraft carrier does not need to be sunk. You just need to damage his deck. But the fact is that such ships are needed, in particular, to ensure the security of the island part of the Far East. I do not express the opinion of theorists, tacticians, strategists of the Navy. I'm expressing my opinion. Why do I like "Storm"? Because it has a certain case architecture. We called it a one-and-a-half-hull, that is, a semi-chamfered type. Because there was a task to increase the area of the take—off deck, and it can be solved by changing the architecture of the hull," Valery Nikolaevich said in conclusion.
Sergey Babkin