Submarine transport vessels for the transit corridor Southeast Asia–Europe in the Arctic Ocean

The use of the Arctic Ocean as a year-round transport corridor from Southeast Asia to Western Europe can provide economic advantages for Russia, comparable to the exploitation of canals between the oceans–the Suez and Panama. Economically efficient year-round navigation along the northern transport corridor is possible with an underwater delivery of goods scheme. To reduce the cost of the project, it is proposed to build transport submarine from fiber and armature concrete, much more cheap and technological materials in comparison to steel. Load-unloading is proposed to be made in lighters, and loading of lighters into underwater transport ships is carried out before the ice border. Opening heavy (more than 10,000 tons) hatches for lighters loading is possible in the transport ship underwater position, when the weight of the hatches is compensated by Archimedes' force. The paper presents a system analysis of the project, its economic background, as well as the simple mathematical models needed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the submarine transport fleet.