A3W reactor

Encyclopedia : A : A3 : A3W : A3W reactor

The A3W reactor was intended for use aboard USS John F. Kennedy. This was a four nuclear reactor per ship design to reduce the cost involved in the construction and operation of Enterprise, with its eight reactors.

Early in the construction, the Secretary of the Navy had the plans changed to save money, and fossil fuel boilers were installed on the Kennedy. Because the plans for the ship did not include a funnel, and to vent exhaust gases away from the flight deck, the funnel on the Kennedy protrudes out from the ship at an angle.

The return to nuclear power for carriers came with the Nimitz class's A4W reactor's two reactor per ship design. The reduced cost of building carriers with two reactors makes the cost of the power plants still account for just over half the cost of the entire ship.

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.