China has moved a step closer to creating a supersonic submarine that could travel from Shanghai to San Francisco in less than two hours. New technology developed by a team of scientists at Harbin Institute of Technology’s Complex Flow and Heat Transfer Lab has made it easier for a submarine, or torpedo, to travel at extremely high speeds underwater. In theory, a supercavitating vessel could reach the speed of sound underwater, or about 5,800km/h, which would reduce the journey time for a transatlantic underwater cruise to less than an hour, and for a transpacific journey to about 100 minutes. However, supercavitation technology has faced two major problems. First, the submerged … Continue reading Stephen Chen