Photo By Chief Petty Officer Rebecca Ives | Eduardo "Ed" Santana, quality assurance specialist for Trident Refit Facility Bangor's...... read more read more
SILVERDALE, Wash. (Jan. 27, 2021) – Trident Refit Facility Bangor (TRFB) is no stranger to troubleshooting problems. The command is built on identifying and correcting technical challenges found within the daily mission of submarine refits. Maintenance and modernization is TRFB’s mission, so it’s no surprise when new maintenance requirements arise, TRFB is there to find a solution.
Fiber Optics (FO) is not a new technology. The U.S. Navy adopted it in 1975 and first used it aboard the USS Little Rock (CLG-4). Since then, it has become the main communications medium for surface ships and submarines. From communication to weapons systems, radar and sonar systems, navigational systems, virtually every mission-critical system relies on FO networks because they are no larger than a strand of hair and offer many advantages over copper cables. These thin, flexible fibers of glass are faster at transmitting digital information, resistant to many outside forces like electro-magnetic interference (EMI) and radio-frequency interference (RFI), ideal for long-distance hardline communications and have significant weight and space advantages over traditional copper wire.
While FO is used on the submarines TRFB maintains, it’s more prevalent on surface ships. Shipyards, like Puget Sound Naval Shipyard & Intermediate Maintenance Facility (PSNS&IMF), do the most work in FO maintenance and repair. However, with the future launch of the new Columbia-class submarine, TRFB employees will need to have at least a basic understanding of FO and many more will need to be trained on how to handle them.
This is where the challenge begins. According to Steve Skaw, TRFB Weapons Repair Department Head, there are only two companies that offer the required FO training at a cost of approximately $15,000 per student.
“It’s expensive and time consuming,” said Skaw. “But that doesn’t make the need go away. So the shipyards got together and decided to develop their own in-house training. TRFB took a leading role.”
In 2017, Skaw tasked TRFB Strategic Weapons Quality Assurance Officer Chuck Cook with representing TRFB as part of the NAVSEA team developing the FO course. TRFB led the development of the “core” module of the core curriculum for the naval shipyards.
According to Cook, to start, TRFB sent a few employees to the Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) FO training and certified them as NAVSEA FO Instructors to give them the knowledge they needed to bring the training to the Pacific Northwest region. The course went over the types of FO the Navy uses and provided hands-on training.
“The U.S. Navy currently uses three types of optical cables,” said Eduardo “Ed” Santana, quality assurance specialist for TRFB’s weapons repair department and one of TRFB’s NAVSEA Certified FO instructors. “Conventional, which looks like normal copper cables from the outside with multiple FO strands internally; Optical Fiber Cable Component (OFCC) which are individual FO strands surrounded by aramid synthetic fibers and protective coating; and individual Blown Optical Fiber (BOF) which are also individual fibers but with no aramid or cover, just a light acrylate coating. BOF is routed inside a BOF tube, which looks like a large conventional cable from the outside, but internally there are multiple 8mm in diameter micro-tubes. BOF provides flexibility in repair and modernization.”
Santana went on to explain, “The current shipbuilding design uses the micro-tube system in many systems because of the ease with which fibers can be replaced. The future Columbia-class submarine will also feature this technology. The problem is that there are only 10 patented machines world-wide that can blow fibers and they are approximately $25,000 a year to lease.”
The Navy has a new requirement for BOF, according to Skaw. So, TRFB will need to train more people to meet the requirement for hands-on training on the system. TRFB employees looked for innovative solutions to work around the high price tag and still meet the hands-on training requirement.
Due to the increase in demand for BOF coupled with a limited amount of BOF systems worldwide, Cook’s team set out to find the Navy a cost-effective, time-saving solution and ended up developing a new method using custom designed parts and pieces to install their own BOF.
“Because we are laymen, we have a different perspective,” said Cook. “We knew we wanted to create a machine that was simple to use, can go down a submarine hatch and does its job.”
TRFB has developed a $1,500 system that can be made almost entirely on site using 3D printers, saving the Navy money by training at the command, while eliminating the need and cost of leasing the BOF machine.
“Our team is hopeful this system could eventually be used Navy wide,” said Skaw.
Following any validation and certification testing, the system has the potential to vastly improve efficiency during ship maintenance periods. Expanding training and capabilities is necessary as the Navy is continually searching to create capacity.
“The Navy will own the process,” said Santana. “Each command will be able to acquire as many of these systems to meet their needs, reducing the total time needed for all installations on a project. Imagine conducting say, 10 installations, simultaneously on one project at the same time in different locations of the ship instead of waiting on one machine for the whole shipyard. It will be a day-saver; not hours, days.”
NAVSEA certified the system in February 2019 and TRFB plans to start training employees once the classroom is ready, which is scheduled for completion the first quarter of 2021.
TRFB was established in the Pacific Northwest on July 1, 1981, as the primary maintenance facility for the West Coast Ballistic Missile Submarine (SSBN) fleet. TRFB’s principal mission is to support the nation’s strategic deterrence mission by repairing, incrementally overhauling, and modernizing the Ohio-class and the future Columbia-class until the end of service life. The TRFB team is comprised of approximately 500 military and 1,500 civilians.
For more information, visit: https://www.navsea.navy.mil/Home/TRFB
| Date Taken: | 01.27.2021 |
| Date Posted: | 01.27.2021 15:07 |
| Story ID: | 387737 |
| Location: | SILVERDALE, WA, US |
| Web Views: | 103 |
| Downloads: | 2 |
This work, TRFB Employees Develop Time, Money-Saving Fiber Optics System, by CPO Rebecca Ives, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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