Don Cleavin – How the diesel engine worked

Simon: The engines were run to power the submarine and to charge the batteries. How did that work?

Direct drive. When you were on the surface the engines sucked the air in from the outside down the Conning Tower.

The engines were clutched to the propellor and the electric motor, so you’ve got your engine, engine clutch, electric motor, motor clutch and then your propellor.

So, when you’re on the surface, the engine is driving everything. When you dive, of course you stop your engine, you disengage the engine clutch, and the motor then drives you while you’re underwater.

Simon: From battery?

On battery, yeah. You’ve got the snort system. You are security cleared aren’t you? (laughs). You’ve got the snort system.

That’s when you propellor at periscope depth, you raise your snort mast, the snort induction mast, that sucks in air from the outside, through your hull valve into your Engine Room to feed your engines.

The exhaust goes out through the hull, through the exhaust valves into a ducting at the back of the snort mast or depending on which Class it is, it comes out jus below the surface.

So, when your engines is running, you’ve got a lot of bubbles coming out from your snort mast.