Why build a ship out of ice during WWII?

In the early 1940s, when the most potent powers entered World War II, determined to destroy each other, German submarines wreaked havoc in the Atlantic Ocean, destroying Allied ships. And when the British began to run out of the necessary resources to create naval equipment, the most important of which was steel, one scientist who worked at the headquarters of the Royal Navy had the idea to build a giant aircraft carrier out of ordinary ice. Winston Churchill supported the idea, but the project could not be fully implemented.

A fantastic idea by the British scientist Geoffrey Pyke

During the Second World War, the British Navy was constantly attacked by German submarines plying the North Atlantic. Allied transport ships crossing the Atlantic Ocean were also intercepted and sunk. Airplanes could not protect boats because they could not be deployed in the middle of the ocean without aircraft carriers, and the creation of these huge machines required a large amount of steel, which was sorely lacking in the country. There was an urgent need to ensure that aircraft could land and refuel without overloading already limited resources.

British scientist Geoffrey Pyke, who worked as an adviser to the Commander-in-Chief of the Royal Navy, Lord Mountbatten, came up with a bold and seemingly fantastic solution: to break off a large piece of an Arctic iceberg, tow it to the Atlantic Ocean, and build a huge aircraft carrier from it. In his opinion, ice was a strong enough material for such an aircraft carrier to stay on the surface, and any damage could be easily repaired on the spot by freezing new pieces of ice into the ice vessel.

When this idea began to be discussed in government circles, Pyke had to figure out a way to prevent the rapid melting of ice and ensure that the ice aircraft carrier was sufficiently stable on the high seas. Further research by the scientist led to the creation of a composite material – pykerite, consisting of a mixture of ice and wood pulp, and later named after him. The resulting mixture turned out to be much stronger than ordinary ice and resisted melting more quickly. With the help of powerful refrigeration units, the melting process could be slowed down several times.

The production of pykerite was not particularly difficult and could be achieved by mixing and then freezing the wood pulp with water. According to Pyke’s calculations, the wood pulp fibers should serve as a reinforcing element, preventing the formation of large, brittle structures made of ice crystals.

The material obtained during the experiments was a lightweight but surprisingly durable composite that could be molded into various shapes. Its unique properties made it possible to build large and stable structures capable of withstanding sea loads and the weight of aircraft.

Winston Churchill gives the go-ahead

The Soldering project immediately attracted attention in certain circles due to the cheapness of the materials, the ease of their processing, and the relatively low energy required to turn water into ice. He was supported by the Commander-in-Chief of the Royal Navy, Lord Mountbatten, who managed to convince Prime Minister Winston Churchill that this project could turn the tide of the war.

There was even a story that once an excited Lord Mountbatten burst into Churchill’s bathroom while he was taking a bath and threw a piece of pykrete into the hot water, and then both watched in amazement for several minutes as the ice floated on the surface of the hot water, retaining its shape.

It was also rumored that Lord Mountbatten brought two pieces of ice and pykrete to the Quebec conference and staged a real shooting there to demonstrate the strength of the material he invented. The bullet immediately broke a piece of ice and ricocheted off the pykrete and Admiral Ernest King’s trouser leg, and hit the wall.

It is not known whether this happened, but Churchill was very interested in this project, and in early 1942, he gave the go-ahead for its implementation. Visit. A F R I N I K . C O M . For the full article. With his light hand, the project was codenamed Avvakum after the biblical prophet. It involved the creation of a huge ice aircraft carrier 600 meters long, 90 meters wide, and weighing about two million tons.

Teams of engineers and workers had to prepare a huge amount of ice, mix it with wood pulp, and then mold it into the desired shape, which would be equipped with runways, aircraft hangars, and other necessary structures. According to the designers, the ice aircraft carrier was supposed to accommodate up to 200 Spitfire fighters or 100 Mosquito bombers. A powerful cooling system consisting of a complex network of pipelines was supposed to pump the cooled refrigerant throughout the ship, preventing the natural melting of ice.

The construction of the aircraft carrier was planned to begin in a cold climate, where ice could be extracted and processed into pykrete at no extra cost. Although it was not an easy task, requiring special equipment and additional research, the potential benefits of this project, according to experts, were worth the effort.

What did the British face when implementing the Avvakum project?

In the winter of 1943, a prototype Avvakum was built on the west coast of Canada, on Lake Patricia, which is a wooden frame 18 meters long and 9 meters wide, filled with ice blocks. The refrigeration units, which drove cold air through metal pipes, were located in its central body and made it possible to maintain a low ice temperature throughout the summer.

Although the construction of the prototype was considered successful, and the project seemed to have all the prerequisites for successful implementation, unforeseen circumstances that arose during the tests intervened. Despite the hardness of pykerite, scientists calculated that a large aircraft carrier would inevitably sink under its weight. It became obvious that much more steel reinforcement would be needed, and more effective insulation would be needed to melt the ice more slowly.

If the initial cost of the project was estimated at 700 thousand pounds, then as it developed, the cost estimates soared to 2.5 million pounds, which by today’s standards corresponds to 100 million pounds. There were also some management issues. Initially, it was planned that the speed of the Avvakum would be 7 knots. Still, it turned out that an aircraft carrier of this size would have limited maneuverability and a maximum speed of 6 knots, which the Navy considered too slow.

But the biggest problem was the raw materials. Like steel, wood was in short supply at the time, and the construction of even one aircraft carrier would have had a serious impact on the country’s paper production. In addition, the construction, insulation, and cooling of such a large structure would require significant labor and costs that none of the allies could afford.

Soon, the Avvakum project was curtailed, and the prototype aircraft carrier, built on Lake Patricia, thawed for three years, despite the shutdown of the cooling units, thus proving that the search for alternative building materials was not unsuccessful. Pykrete has found applications in other fields, such as the creation of insulated containers and refrigerating chambers. And the idea of creating an ice vessel, although it is considered one of the most unusual inventions of the last century, was not so unrealizable.