Hydraulic Direct Actuator Drives Conventional Submarine Energy Management

This paper has been prepared to give a general overview of the benefits of selecting Variable Pressure Hydraulics to control the Rudder and Hydroplane actuators within a submarine.

Traditionally, submarine control surface positioning has been achieved by actuators powered through the main hydraulic system, operating at maximum power, which also provides hydraulic power to other components of the boat. As a result, hydraulic fluid is carried through piping to reach connected hydraulic components, incurring energy losses on-route. Even greater losses can occur in proportional directional control valves, due to flow throttling.

The Variable Pressure Hydraulics (VPH) design is based on mitigating these losses through use of local pump and control assemblies, the performance of which varies to meet the actuator demand. There are also further benefits with the VPH system, over the traditional ring-mains setup, such as:
  Noise signature reduction
  Weight Saving
  Increased safety/redundancy

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