by JOC Michael Foutch
quipped with the most advanced weaponry and surveillance capabilities in the history of naval warfare, the Submarine Force patrols the world’s oceans to defend our nation and preserve the American way of life. But the same technical advances now propelling the undersea force into the future may also have significant potential for making that way of life even better for us all. Investments in military technology have often spilled over into everyday life to benefit all Americans. For example, the Internet grew from the desire of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to design a network for allowing computers at different universities to communicate with each other without a central control node. As a result of the adaptation of this military technology for everyday use, today’s wired world shares information at speeds unimagined only a few decades ago. On the other hand, not every military development transferred to civilian use has been high technology. In World War II, a product called “duck tape” was used for water-proofing ammunition cases. Soldiers also found it useful for repairing jeeps, guns, and even aircraft, and the tape went on to commercial fame as “duct tape,” for sealing seams in air ducting and an infinite variety of other household tasks. Thanks to the know-how of a number of scientists who have spent their professional lives on advancing submarine technology, a number of other improvements in the quality of civilian life may be close to realization right now. One place where this work is underway today is a nondescript group of buildings on a leafy campus in a rural valley of Pennsylvania. Some of these promising new technologies are still in the minds of scientists strolling the halls or sketched on a drawing board or computer screen. Others are tinkered with in the noisy laboratories inside. And a few are already in the fleet, under test by Submariners who will soon be using them in the near future. Unexpectedly, a handful of these new ideas may eventually be adapted for home use in cooling ice cream or building a quieter lawnmower. During World War II, the Navy mobilized scientists and engineers from universities nationwide to join the war effort, and one group was located at Harvard’s Underwater Sound Laboratory. These acoustics experts made major advances in wartime sonar systems for detecting German U-boats and acoustically-guided homing torpedoes to sink them. With the end of the conflict, many of the organizations that were mobilized for the war effort returned to their civilian work. The Navy, however, was determined to continue
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(top) The Applied Research Laboratory's Garfield Thomas Water Tunnel at Penn State has helped in the development of advanced instrumentation such as laser measurement systems. (bottom) The tunnel, dedicated in 1949, was so large the building that houses it on campus was constructed around it. According to Penn State, the idea behind the tunnel was to provide a unique hydrodynamic facility to study cavitation phenomena in designing wake-adapted propellers that have led to quieter Navy propulsors. The tunnel has also been used to calibrate model-installed acoustic pressure and unsteady force transducers. Photos provided by ARL, Penn State
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