Icebreaker "Leader": characteristics and photos

The main direction in the development of the Northern Sea Route is to ensure the export of mineral raw materials, and to accomplish this task the country needs a new icebreaker leader. Realization of investment projects in the sphere of extraction of mineral resources (eleven of them are associated with oil and gas, and four more - with coal and ore extraction, including operating and promising ones - Norilsk, Dudinka, Novy Port, Dixon, Yamal LNG and others) Requires continuous transit. Therefore, in the future, and the most immediate, is an increase in the cargo flow of the Northern Sea Route, where at the moment linear icebreakers operate, of which four are nuclear and four are diesel-electric. They are clearly not enough, therefore, the modern icebreaker leader should soon appear.

Conditions and tasks

In the water area of the Northern Sea Route, as it was said, eight ships operate: they are atomic Vaigach, Taimyr, Yamal and 50 years of Victory, as well as diesel engines Kapitan Dranitsyn, Captain Khlebnikov, Krasin, And "Admiral Makarov". Port infrastructure in its development is focused entirely on the development of oil and gas fields, and the emergence of new modern ships, such as the future icebreaker leader, is also entirely related to the extraction of minerals. Such a vessel with a deadweight of more than one hundred thousand tons and a width of more than fifty meters will conduct all-the-year-round transport caravans throughout the sea route. The speed that the icebreaker-leader promises to have is planned to be economically efficient - about fifteen knots in the thickest ice.

Sketch design was carried out by Krylovsky SSC and CDB Iceberg. From the very beginning, the newest atomic icebreaker-leader was developed (project LK-110Ya). He is able to provide year-round navigation and accompany all expeditions to the Arctic. The ship was to be huge - more than two hundred meters long and about forty wide. Its power on the shafts, judging by the name of the project, was planned to be of the order of 110 MW (name decoding: LC - icebreaker, 110 - power, I - nuclear power plant). Literally throughout the whole Northern Sea Route icebreakers are needed, able to overcome ice thickness of three and a half meters. But ahead there was one more project - LK-120MW, the hope of our Arctic fleet, and it will be discussed below.

Plans

In the western part of the Arctic, the ice is not so thick - up to three meters, and therefore icebreakers can provide navigation at any time of the year, even if they have a capacity of up to sixty megawatts. In the east, everything is different, the ice conditions are completely different. Therefore, in order to support year-round navigation along the Northern Sea Route, it is planned to extend the life of existing nuclear-powered ships (previously it was planned to be one hundred thousand hours, now it is one hundred and fifty). And at this time to build and put into operation universal nuclear double-homing machines of a new generation, plus an icebreaker-leader (LK-110Ya project). Such plans existed until 2008, when new icebreakers were to be commissioned.

As a result, the nuclear ship "Siberia" was modernized, and the legendary "Arctic" of 1972, which completely exhausted its resource, was replaced in June 2016 by a new "Arctic" capable of replacing two icebreakers - both for oceanic three-meter ice, and for work in the River beds. However, the descent to the water did not mean the completion of all work. Finally, this icebreaker will be put into operation in December 2017, if everything goes according to plan. This is a very good ship and very necessary, but he is not the same leader. The peculiarity is that the nuclear icebreaker-leader is capable of increasing icebreakability up to three and a half meters. In addition, he has an increased winter speed, and therefore the wiring will be provided without violating the terms for the delivery of goods. Neither the season nor the weather conditions will disturb the icebreakers of LK-110Ya (the "leader" is the code of the project in this case). The development was occupied by the Central Design Bureau "Iceberg" and the Afrikantov OKBM (for the nuclear facility).

How is your work going

In 2015, the world saw what the nuclear icebreaker leader represented, although only the project was ready. In December of the year, the Fifth International Forum dedicated to the present and the future of the Arctic was held, and the Krylov Scientific Center at its stand showed a model of the future promising ship. It was the icebreaker-leader of the project 10510. Its capacity is planned at one hundred twenty megawatt, and it will be built in eight or nine years. It is impossible to hurry with this, we need infrastructure and a proper cargo fleet. In 2015, the outline design was completed, and in 2016, the technical design was developed. Now the design documentation is being prepared. Thanks to this work, the new icebreaker leader can be repeated in a variety of trim levels.

Then in Kubinka was the international forum "Army-2016", where this model was presented again, but already different from the original one. The design project changed its appearance quite significantly. The nuclear icebreaker of the Leader project is being developed by several companies. First of all, CDB "Iceberg" is the main developer, and Krylovsky SSC always coordinates with each its conceptual project. In this case, the exterior has changed significantly. In 2017, the practical implementation of developments began.

Few features

The design that the nuclear-powered icebreaker-leader (project 10510) will have unique, it will be able to provide for wiring through ice even large-capacity dry cargo ships and tankers, those that now can not be used by the Northern Sea Route. A new word in the history of shipbuilding will be that the ship will not have any identical transverse rib in the frame (the frame), which should provide exceptional patency in the ice, which is beyond the power of any icebreaker of this class. The designers have calculated and found new technical solutions, thanks to which the icebreaker leader, whose photo layout is placed at the very beginning and at the very end of our review, can easily overcome not even three and a half, but all four meters of ice thickness and even all five, Ships channel width of more than fifty meters.

And on the "thin" ice (two meters!), It will pass without reducing the speed from fourteen knots. And the power planned ten years ago already seems insufficient. One hundred and twenty megawatts should have at least a leading icebreaker-leader, 110 MW designers already consider quite ordinary power for such a machine. After all, an ordinary icebreaker from the LK-60 series on two-meter ice moves at a speed of only two knots, and the gauge can break not wider than thirty-six meters. Propellers on the new ship will be made of graphene material, and they have no analogues in the world. These are unique products that are invulnerable to ice, changing the shape to the optimum depending on the speed of the icebreaker, which means that the ship will not lose speed, but will get maneuverability. In the autumn of 2017, research - numerical, experimental and integrated - will be completed, and the tests are completed. The autonomy of the vessel is planned for eight months (the duration of navigation without calling at the port), and the service life is forty years. The head icebreaker-leader (project 10510) was planned to be commissioned in 2024.

Figures

In addition to the head icebreaking vessel, the ones discussed at the beginning of the article continue to be developed - it is a nuclear-powered 110-MW nuclear-powered icebreaker. Their displacement is 55,600 tons, the length is maximum 206, and the width is up to 40 meters, the height of the side is 20 meters, the draft is 13, and the working minimum is 11 meters. They will be equipped with three propellers. By pure water will be able to go at a speed of 24 knots and smash the ice to a thickness of 3.5 meters. This icebreaker will need a crew of 127 people.

And for comparison: the characteristics of the leading icebreaker-leader (project 105110). The displacement is much higher - 71380 tons, length 209 meters, width 47.7. The draft of this vessel is the same - 13 meters. But the reactor installation is much more powerful. The reactor will be two here - RHYTHM-400, both with a thermal capacity of 350 MW. And the ship's power, as it was said above, is 120 MW. According to the range of navigation, the icebreaker is not limited, the autonomy of the provisions is eight months. Interesting figures relating the speed of the vessel and the permeability of ice: with a thickness of 4.3 meters - 2 nodes, and at a thickness of 2 meters - 15 knots. The width of the canal that the icebreaker is laying is 51 meters.

At the top

Concerning the creation of such icebreakers, a decision has already been adopted by the Russian government, where several organizations - the Ministry of Industry and Trade of Russia, the Ministry of Transport of Russia, the Ministry of Finance and the state corporation Rosatom are entrusted with the issue of financing. Serial construction will begin after 2020. A draft design for today is ready, and the construction of icebreakers 110 MW started. And the head icebreaker-leader will be twice as powerful as those currently under construction - sixty megawatts, as Dmitry Rogozin said in May 2015. The development stages will be overcome in the planned order: this is a technical proposal, then a draft design, after it a technical project and, finally, a working one.

And two years later, at the end of June 2017, the International Maritime Defense Salon opened in St. Petersburg, where Alexei Rakhmanov, the president of the shipbuilding corporation, talked a lot about the prospects that the icebreaker construction project 10510 Lider would bring. He also noted that the Ministry of Industry finances the project only for initial works, since the technological aspects are still not sufficiently developed. That is why the formation of a financial scheme for its construction has not yet begun. The deadline for putting the icebreaker into operation was previously moved for another year. Initially, it was supposed to be done in 2023, and now it is called 2025th.

How did this happen?

The most promising type of icebreakers for the foreseeable future is seen by all Russian icebreaker project 10510 "Leader", including LK-110Ya and LK-120Ya). The main task of such a vessel is to provide year-round navigation along the entire length of the Northern Sea Route and conduct expeditions to the Arctic. Many media outlets noted that Rosatomflot had promised to build such a ship by 2023 in Severodvinsk or St. Petersburg, and funds for this will be provided by the Social Development Program of the Arctic zone of Russia, and in the period until 2020 will finance, and in the future.

However, in April 2017, the Ministry of Economic Development intervened with a proposal for a thorough correction of this program, excluding eighty billion rubles from financing, which it was planned to invest in the construction of the ship. Perhaps this decision is understandable: it is not just the state that should participate in such a huge project. The country has a lot of private capital, which is very profitable to create an icebreaker, opening year-round navigation on the Northern Sea Route.

Naval Salon

Thanks to the International Maritime Defense and despite the anti-Russian sanctions, many foreign delegations were extremely attentive to the draft of the new icebreaker. There were commanders-in-chief of the naval forces of different countries, naval ministers and a huge number of foreign industrialists, mostly European. They were very interested in plans related to our navy, and, in principle, this interest never faded away.

Arctic subjects are generally special. All the presented projects of Russian icebreakers were thoroughly studied by foreign guests, but they showed interest to the icebreaker "Leader" in half with amazement. Sufficiently large nuclear icebreakers "Siberia", "Ural", "Arctic" will be commissioned from 2019 to 2021, and all of them have half the capacity - 60 MW. And this - the leader, he with his hundred and twenty-megawatts can rip open the ice almost without restrictions - at least five meters thick.

Expert opinions

Requirements for icebreaking vessels are increasing, and therefore the fleet management - both nuclear and non-nuclear - has come to the need to consolidate, - it was to this opinion that Russian experts came. Our country, of course, has certain resources for building the strongest icebreaking fleet, and it will certainly be fully in demand in the Arctic, as cargo traffic there is constantly growing. However, the construction of Arctic vessels should be handled not only at the expense of the state. According to experts, it is necessary to develop this sphere and attract private investment in the construction of new icebreakers.

The volume of traffic along the Northern Sea Route ( NSR ) for 2016 was about seven and a half million tons, and with the advent of an icebreaker providing year-round navigation, it will grow to eighty million. Already by 2024, transportation is expected to exceed forty million tons. The main cargo flow is oil, liquefied gas, metals, coal. Corporations engaged in mining and processing of minerals are primarily interested in the appearance of an icebreaker of this class. This promises them fabulous profits, so let them invest.

Arctic Resources

The systematic development of Arctic resources from year to year increases the cargo traffic in the NSR. The era of industrial development is most closely connected with the exploration of new water areas and territories rich in resources, primarily oil and gas. This work has been going on for a very long time, and the results were the Norilsk industry, the Kola mining industry, the Nenets and Yamalo-Nenets oil and gas complexes, as well as many other large-scale projects all the way from the Kola to the Chukchi Peninsula.

Already today, the Arctic is eighty percent of gas production, eleven percent of oil production, ninety-five percent of nickel production and one hundred percent - apatite. All the minerals that give us these territories, even it is difficult to enumerate. The flow of goods in the Arctic is entirely connected with the export of these products, and this is many tens of millions of tons. We need not only icebreakers, but also cargo ships in sufficient numbers, with the highest classes, for example - Arc-7. And the number of icebreakers should be doubled at a minimum, because all those working now are already exhausting the last warranty service.