Submarines
SubmarinesSubmarines
I chose to do my Physics final on submarines. I chose it because when I was a kid I was really interested in submarines. Also I wanted to learn about the people that invented them.
The first submarine that was made was a wooden rowboat that was covered with a waterproof cowhide. The man that first built it was named Cornelius van Drebble. He showed off his invention in England, the year was about 1620. They called his submarine, “Father of the Submarine.” After that a lot of scientist were trying to make submarines. Most of them were not used until the Revolutionary War of America (1775-1783). When that war was going on a man named David Bushnell, that went to Yale College, designed a submarine that he called, “The Turtle.” It was a one-man submarine that was powered by a crank that you had to turn by hand. When you turned the crank that would make the propeller spin so you would move. They tested out, “The Turtle” in the New York harbor, but it failed. That was the first time that a submarine was used to attack another submarine.
The third submarine was built is by a man named Robert Fulton; he was an American inventor. He designed a submarine named the, “U.S.S. Nautilus.” It was a copper-covered submarine that was 21 feet long. He tried to sell his ship to both France and England. In his demonstration it sunk many of ships, but they still did not want to buy it.
In the Civil War (1861-1865) a submarine named, “Hunley,” was the first submarine to sink a ship in wartime. It had a long pole on its bow, at the end of the pole there was a piece of explosive. When it tried to sink the submarine named, “Housatonis,” it succeded, but it also sank itself.
The next submarine that was made is by an American inventor named John P. Holland. He made a submarine that was 53 feet long. It used gasoline for the engine and batteries. The submarine could go up to 7 knots on top of the water and 6 knots when it was under water. He launched it in 1898. The Navy bought this ship and named it the, “U.S.S. Holland.” After he invented this submarine, he invented the periscope. The periscope was his main accomplishment. He also made submarines with wheels so the submarines could role along the bottom of the ocean.
In 1908 Great Britain launched the first diesel powered submarine. There were a few advantages to using diesel. The advantages were that the submarines became more powerful, it was cheaper to operate, and the fumes were less dangerous than gasoline. After the invention of this diesel submarine all the submarines were diesel until the development of the nuclear submarine.
During World War 1 (1914-1918) Germany had a very deadly submarine. The submarine's name was the, “U-9.” It sank three British cruisers in about an hour. The German submarines were called, “Unterseeboote,” or they called them, “U-boats.” The, “U-boats” destroyed a lot of merchant and passenger ships. When the, “U-boats” were together, 40 or more they called it a, “wolf pack.”
In 1954 the Navy made the first nuclear powered submarine. They called it, “Nautilus.” When the submarine first went out, it broke all of the other submarine’s records for underwater speed and endurance. “Nautilus” was also the first submarine to go under the ice at the North Pole.
Nuclear submarines consume a little amount of energy and are very quiet. They are like that because they carry their energy source with them. They can go about 400,000 miles with out refueling. The nuclear submarine has a nuclear reactor that provides heat; the heat is then turned into electricity by the generator, which is in the engine compartment. Then that makes the propeller spin so the submarine will move. The nuclear submarines have a lot of missiles, torpedo’s, and nuclear warheads that can be fired underwater to hit enemy submarines or boats over one thousand miles away.