\u201cA submarine is a steel tank with 140 souls aboard that we want to come home.\u201d
\u2014 Eric Snider \u201986<\/p><\/div><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Snider\u2019s work with nuclear reactors goes back to his days as a nuclear engineering major, when he worked at NC State\u2019s PULSTAR reactor facility. That led to a hitch in the U.S. Navy, which eventually brought him into contact with Smith\u2009\u2014\u2009a civil servant who has been in the shipbuilding business at Newport News for her entire career.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI had a lot of options coming out of school with a mechanical [engineering] background,\u201d says Smith, vice president at Newport News Shipbuilding. \u201cBut taking the windshield tour during the interview\u2009…\u2009got me immediately thinking this was how I could serve my country in a different role.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Building the first Columbia-class submarine is taking more than seven years. It\u2019s a modular construction, with a half-dozen modules built at different facilities and shipped to General Dynamics Electric Boat for final assembly. Completion is scheduled for 2027, with deployment four years later. The Columbia submarines will replace the U.S. fleet\u2019s aging Ohio-class submarines, which have been in service since 1981.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Columbia submarines will have fewer missile tubes than those in the Ohio-class (16 rather than 24), but they can still cover the same mission thanks to technological advances. Columbia submarines are significantly larger than Ohio-class, weighing in at more than 20,000 tons, with a 43-foot diameter and a length of 560 feet. \u201cIt\u2019s also the first class of ship designed to have females integrated into the crew,\u201d says Smith. \u201cThat\u2019s kind of a big thing.\u201d Design modifications primarily put instruments within reach for individuals of different sizes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The major advantages of the Columbia class submarines will be greater stealth and a reactor that should not need refueling or servicing over its 40-year lifespan. The only limit for how long Columbia submarines can be at sea is how much food they can carry for the crew.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s very challenging, but worthwhile because of the mission,\u201d says Snider. \u201cSubmarines aren\u2019t called \u2018the silent service\u2019 for nothing. There\u2019s an important mission they carry out on behalf of the nation.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false,"raw":"\n\n\n\n\n Submarines have never been simple machines. But even by that standard, the nuclear-powered ballistic-missile submarine being built at General Dynamics Electric Boat\u2019s Groton, Conn., shipyard is something else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The future USS District of Columbia is the first of a dozen new Columbia-class submarines in a $132 billion project involving multiple shipyards and thousands of workers. Former engineering majors Eric Snider \u201986 and Brandi Smith \u201902 head up the development and construction team for the project. They\u2019re part of what Snider says is one of the most complicated devices in human history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cA submarine is a steel tank with 140 souls aboard that we want to come home,\u201d says Snider, vice president, Columbia program, General Dynamics Electric Boat. \u201cThey take it to sea, submerge, surface, do all that. It\u2019s jammed with high-pressure fluids and electricity, and it has to make air to breathe. That\u2019s not even considering that it\u2019s powered by a nuclear reactor. It all makes for a very complicated machine.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cA submarine is a steel tank with 140 souls aboard that we want to come home.\u201d Snider\u2019s work with nuclear reactors goes back to his days as a nuclear engineering major, when he worked at NC State\u2019s PULSTAR reactor facility. That led to a hitch in the U.S. Navy, which eventually brought him into contact with Smith\u2009\u2014\u2009a civil servant who has been in the shipbuilding business at Newport News for her entire career.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI had a lot of options coming out of school with a mechanical [engineering] background,\u201d says Smith, vice president at Newport News Shipbuilding. \u201cBut taking the windshield tour during the interview\u2009...\u2009got me immediately thinking this was how I could serve my country in a different role.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Building the first Columbia-class submarine is taking more than seven years. It\u2019s a modular construction, with a half-dozen modules built at different facilities and shipped to General Dynamics Electric Boat for final assembly. Completion is scheduled for 2027, with deployment four years later. The Columbia submarines will replace the U.S. fleet\u2019s aging Ohio-class submarines, which have been in service since 1981.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Columbia submarines will have fewer missile tubes than those in the Ohio-class (16 rather than 24), but they can still cover the same mission thanks to technological advances. Columbia submarines are significantly larger than Ohio-class, weighing in at more than 20,000 tons, with a 43-foot diameter and a length of 560 feet. \u201cIt\u2019s also the first class of ship designed to have females integrated into the crew,\u201d says Smith. \u201cThat\u2019s kind of a big thing.\u201d Design modifications primarily put instruments within reach for individuals of different sizes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The major advantages of the Columbia class submarines will be greater stealth and a reactor that should not need refueling or servicing over its 40-year lifespan. The only limit for how long Columbia submarines can be at sea is how much food they can carry for the crew.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s very challenging, but worthwhile because of the mission,\u201d says Snider. \u201cSubmarines aren\u2019t called \u2018the silent service\u2019 for nothing. There\u2019s an important mission they carry out on behalf of the nation.\u201d <\/p>\n"},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A pair of alums is leading efforts to build a new class of nuclear-powered submarines for the U.S. Navy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6138,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"views\/single-immersive.blade.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"source":"","ncst_custom_author":"","ncst_show_custom_author":false,"ncst_dynamicHeaderBlockName":"ncst\/default-immersive-post-header","ncst_dynamicHeaderData":"{\"backgroundColor\":\"red_400\",\"displayCategoryID\":9,\"showAuthor\":true,\"showDate\":true,\"showFeaturedVideo\":false,\"subtitle\":\"A pair of alums is leading efforts to build a new class of nuclear-powered submarines for the U.S. Navy.\"}","ncst_content_audit_freq":"","ncst_content_audit_date":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10,8,9],"tags":[1681,1628,272,318,1627,1625,1624,1630,966,1629,1626],"_ncst_magazine_issue":[],"class_list":["post-6134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-class-act","category-newswire","category-stories","tag-autumn-2024-profile","tag-brandi-smith","tag-college-of-engineering","tag-david-menconi","tag-eric-snider","tag-general-dynamics-electric-boat","tag-groton-connecticut","tag-newport-news-shipbuilding","tag-pulstar","tag-u-s-navy","tag-uss-district-of-columbia"],"displayCategory":{"term_id":9,"name":"Stories","slug":"stories","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":9,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":248,"filter":"raw"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6134"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6134"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6134\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6219,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6134\/revisions\/6219"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6134"},{"taxonomy":"_ncst_magazine_issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/_ncst_magazine_issue?post=6134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Renderings](\"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/CLB_GenDynamicsElecBoat_rgb-1024x576.jpg\")
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<\/figure>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n\n\n\nBy David Menconi<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
\u2014 Eric Snider \u201986<\/p><\/div><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<\/figure>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n\n\n\n