Ship-Submarine Recycling Program

In the Ship - Submarine Recycling Program, the United States Navy divided its decommissioned nuclear-powered ships. The work will be carried out in the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard. Mainly this concerns the disposal of nuclear submarines and some nuclear cruisers, nuclear-powered carrier will be provided until around 2015.

History

In the late 1970s, the first nuclear -powered ships withdrawals from service drew closer, examined the Navy, whether the hulls without nuclear fuel, but with the reactor department could be sunk or the reactor cut out and should be stored ashore. Both methods have been classified as safe, the Navy chose the latter from 1984. The early 1990s, then began the first decompositions in the context of the Ship - Submarine Recycling Program. By 2008, more than 100 nuclear submarines and seven nuclear cruisers were scrapped in the program.

The first wrecked submarine was the USS Robert E. Lee (SSBN-601), the first cruiser USS Truxtun (CGN- 35 ), the first aircraft carrier is expected to be the USS Enterprise ( CVN -65) are.

The costs in 1998 were around 40 million U.S. dollars for deactivation and decomposition of submarines, for an aircraft carrier of the Nimitz - class took the Navy 1997 cost of up to 950 million dollars to.

Procedure

First, the spent nuclear fuel is removed from the reactor, is brought into the facility of the Naval Reactors Idaho National Laboratory and stored there. In addition, secret equipment be removed. This operation is carried out in several yards; unless it takes place in the Puget Sound, the ship's hull is then towed there.

The ships are dismantled in dry dock. With submarines of the hull including pressure shell is cut in several places and removed as much material as possible from the inside of the boat. Then the reactor department, with missile submarines, the missile branch is cut and sealed. This is about 1680 tons and 13 meters long and is stored in the Hanford Site. The rest of the boat will be dismantled and sold for scrap. When the cruisers out the bodies to be removed from the hull, the procedure is similar to the U- boats.