Reveal the road of integrated development of ship masts

Reveal the road of integrated development of ship masts

2065438+On July 30th, 2008, Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force's new guided missile destroyer 27DDG was launched at Yokohama ji zi Shipyard. As a follow-up type of Aidang class guided missile destroyer, it has been more than ten years since the last Aidang secondary ship "Foot Handle" was launched.

The 27DDG follows the previous type of backward prismatic mast, and the highly integrated mast design of "pagoda" constantly appears in all kinds of sophisticated escort ships. This mast structure is bound to be backward. Based on the development of destroyers, the development of warship mast structure can be reviewed and prospected.

1894- 19 14: a "pillar" in the sky

1894 65438+ 10, the first destroyer in the modern sense, "Hawok", was commissioned by the British Royal Navy. The basic design goal of early destroyers was to deploy on the periphery of the main fleet, to find, defend and use artillery to expel enemy torpedo boats, and to attack the main enemy ships with fish under the cover of unfavorable observation environment such as night and smoke.

This task traction deeply influenced the hull design of early destroyers. In order to meet the communication requirements while ensuring concealment, early destroyers only arranged communication antennas, lights and signal flags on slender masts.

19 14- 1939: climb high and look far.

By the time of World War I, the process of the war and the demand of the operation constantly pushed the adjustment of the destroyer design. On the one hand, destroyers are developing towards large-scale, the displacement is increased from 1000 tons to1000 tons, and the number and caliber of artillery are also increasing; On the other hand, the combat performance of submarines is constantly improving, and underwater threats almost replace the threat of torpedo boats.

After World War I, western countries signed the Treaty on the Limitation of Naval Armament and the Treaty on the Limitation and Reduction of Naval Armament in 1922 and 1930 respectively, which limited the tonnage and quantity of main ships, but did not limit the number of destroyers, which objectively promoted the construction of destroyers.

Before World War II, destroyers had developed into multifunctional ships, and the caliber of naval guns had increased. In order to provide guidance for artillery to shoot sea and air targets and search for floating submarine targets, the height of destroyer masts is getting higher and higher, which requires strengthening the bearing capacity of masts to arrange more sighting equipment, and tripod masts begin to appear.

1939- 1945: the "umbrella" of the motorcade

During World War II, aviation became the number one threat to surface ships. In order to provide airborne early warning, ship-borne radar is used first. The detection range of ship-borne radar is disturbed by the hull chimney and the curvature of the earth, so it needs to be installed at the top of the mast as high as possible. The single mast and tripod mast are very sensitive to the upper weight, and the radar weight is limited by the structural strength of the mast.

1946- 1990: trade-off between load and stealth performance

After the Taiwan Province Navy "Liaoyang" was retired with the improved "Keeling" class after the war, part of it was sold to Taiwan Province Province, China. The mast has been transformed into a grid mast, and the problem of insufficient strength of the mast began to be concerned after the war. At that time, the basic measure to transform destroyers in various countries was to transform single column/tripod mast into grid mast.

Grid mast consists of several metal trusses to form a closed frame, which makes the whole mast form a complete stress structure. The grid mast has strong bending resistance and bearing capacity, and has enough equipment installation space. There is no closed structure, which can let the wind from all directions directly pass through the gap and reduce the navigation resistance. In addition, the lighter structural weight is also beneficial to reduce the center of gravity of the hull.

Most destroyers built during the Cold War are designed with grid masts, but the disadvantage is that the radar reflection signal of grid masts is particularly strong, especially the truss constitutes a large number of strong reflection sources similar to 90 degrees. This facilitated the rapid development of anti-ship missiles in the middle and late Cold War to search and strike targets, so some ships built in the late Cold War laid metal skins outside the mast truss to form closed masts.

199 1 by 2023: radical or safe?

Since 1990s, carbon fiber and glass fiber composites have been widely used in surface ships. On the one hand, compared with traditional steel, composite materials have lower density, stronger structural strength and stronger corrosion resistance, which solves the problem of high center of gravity caused by closed mast; On the other hand, some advanced composite materials have strong wave permeability, and the antenna can be embedded in the skin. 199 1 "arleigh burke" class destroyers entered service, which opened a precedent for the extensive application of shipborne phased array radar and advanced integrated warship combat system.

The maturity of miniaturized shipborne phased array radar has contributed to the emergence of "pagoda" mast. Through the combination of phased array radar and closed mast, the center of gravity and stealth performance are balanced, and the detection distance of radar to horizontal height targets is extended as much as possible.

The most radical mast structure design is the US Navy's "zumwalt" class destroyer, which completely integrates the mast structure into the huge pyramid-shaped superstructure and has the stealth performance and information level of the times. Due to the budget reduction, satellite communication antennas, data link antennas and other antennas are installed outside the originally flat ship island.

Whether "zumwalt" class destroyer can completely subvert the mast structure design and whether the mast structure used by the destroyer for more than a hundred years can continue to be preserved remains to be further tested.