Ship Engine Room Research Articles

Phenomenological characteristics and flame radiation of dynamically evolving oil spill fires in a sealed ship engine room

Available references on ship engine room fires are mainly based on the pool fires, while in reality the leaked liquid fuel tends to form dynamically evolving spill fires, which are quite dangerous and scarcely investigated. In this paper, one-dimensional spill fire experiments with different leakage rates are tentatively conducted in a model-scale ship engine room to reveal their hazards. Due to the coupling effects of oxygen confinement and thermal radiation enhancement, the development of the spill fire for higher fuel leakage rate can be divided into continuous spreading, deceleration diffusion, quasi-steady burning, and decay stages, while the quasi-steady burning stage is nonexistent at lower leakage rates. The initial spread rate of the spill fire in the ship engine room is lower than that in open space, which may be attributed to the heat feedback enhancement in the ship engine room. The spread rate in the continuous spreading stage is about 2.3 times that in the deceleration diffusion stage. Using the modified solid flame model, a segmented theoretical model is developed to predict the radiative heat flux of the spill fire in the ship engine room, and the predicted results agree well with the measured results, with an error ranging from 9% to 19%.

Experimental study on mass burning rate and flame geometry of pool fires under two-way indirect ventilation in Ship's engine room

The influence of wind on the combustion of pool fires has been demonstrated experimentally. However, the complex pipeline ventilation in the engine room is often ignored by existing research. For the typical ventilation structure of the engine room in this paper, a type of two-way/indirect ventilation structure in a confined space with dimensions of 1.5 × 1.5 × 1 m3 is built. N-heptane is used as the fuel, and a circular pool with a diameter of 10 cm is used in the experiments. The variation of mass burning rate and flame geometry under ventilation speeds of 0–4 m/s are studied. The results show that two-way/indirect ventilation greatly changes the combustion characteristics of the pool fires. The mass burning rate fluctuates and increases with increasing ventilation speed. The tilt angle and length of the flame changes nonlinearly with different ventilation speeds, and the ‘swaying’ phenomenon of flame tilt is presented. In addition, the existing correlations of the flame geometry of pool fires under ventilation are further improved. The models predicting flame tilt angle and flame length of pool fires with different ventilation speeds under two-way ventilation structure are established.

Cooling Potential of Ship Engine Intake Air Cooling and Its Realization on the Route Line

A fuel efficiency of a ship engine increases with cooling inlet air. This might be performed by the chillers, which transform the heat of engine exhaust gas and scavenge air for refrigeration. The effect gained due to cooling depends on the intake air temperature drop and the time of engine operation at decreased intake air temperature. Thus, the cooling degree hour (CDH) number, calculated as air temperature depression multiplied by the duration of engine operation at reduced intake air temperature, is used as a primary criterion to estimate the engine fuel efficiency enhancement due to intake air cooling over the ship routes. The engine intake air cooling potential is limited by its value, available according to engine exhaust heat and the efficiency of heat conversion to refrigeration in the chiller, evaluated by the coefficient of performance (COP). Therefore, it should be determined by comparing both the needed and available values of CDH. The ejector chiller (ECh) was chosen for engine exhaust gas heat recovery to refrigeration as the simplest and cheapest, although it has a relatively low COP of about 0.3 to 0.35. However, the ECh generally consists of heat exchanges which are mostly adapted to be placed in free spaces and can be mounted on the transverse and board side bulkheads in the ship engine room. The values of sucked air temperature depression and engine fuel consumption reduction at varying temperatures and humidity of ambient air on the route were evaluated.

Large-Scale Experimental Investigation of Effect of Mechanical Ventilation on Smoke Temperature in Ship Engine Room

Large-Scale Experimental Investigation of Effect of Mechanical Ventilation on Smoke Temperature in Ship Engine Room

Fire Risk Assessment in Engine Rooms Considering the Fire-Induced Domino Effects

This paper proposes a dynamic evolutionary model to quantify the domino effect of ship engine room fires. Based on the spatial and temporal characteristics of fire accidents, the dynamic probability of the domino effect of multiple accident units is calculated using matrix calculation and Monte Carlo simulation. The uncertainties of shipboard personnel, automatic detection systems, sprinkler systems, and the synergistic effects of multiple escalation vectors from different units are addressed. The dynamic probability of the domino effect of multiple accident units is calculated, and a risk assessment of complex fire scenarios in ship engine rooms is implemented. This study also presents the model feasibility in terms of fire risk assessment in cabins with numerous pieces of equipment. The results indicate that 2 min and 4 min are vital time nodes for the development and spread of fires. The extinguishing work on key equipment in the path of the fire's spread can effectively restrain its further expansion. The results can provide critical references for ship fire prevention, fire suppression, and fire protection design.

Fire Risk Assessment of a Ship’s Power System under the Conditions of an Engine Room Fire

This paper presents a risk assessment method for a ship’s power system under the conditions of an engine room fire based on the expert comprehensive evaluation (ECE) method combined with the fuzzy fault tree analysis (FFTA) method. The composition of the main engine system in the engine room and the failure logic of each subsystem were analyzed, and the fuzzy fault tree of a ship engine room fire was constructed. The probability of system failure and the importance of basic events were calculated. The fire safety risk assessment model was established using the safety risk matrix. The risk assessment of a ship engine room fire was implemented. The results demonstrated that the fire frequency of the ship engine room was 5.232 × 10−6 h−1. The fire risk of the main engine fuel system was the highest. Fuel leakages from diesel supply tanks and heavy fuel oil tanks are the main cause of accidents. The proposed method eliminated the influence of incomplete statistics in the risk assessment process and improved the accuracy and credibility of the reassessment results.

Physical environment and work fatigue among ship engine room crew

The physical environment of a ship is often found to be below the government’s standard, which affects employees’ health and causes work fatigue. The present study aimed to identify the physical environment and work fatigue in the ship engine room at Manado Port by applying a cross-sectional analytical approach. The study population was forty-one engine room crew of seven ships with Manado-Talaud Archipelago routes with 7-16 hours trip. The research instrument includes a hygrometer, sound level meter, vibration meter, and work fatigue questionnaire (KAUP2). The data were analyzed descriptively and by performing a correlation test. The study found that the ships’ temperature, noise, and vibration exceeded the stipulated threshold limit value. The relationship between the physical environment and work fatigue was also noticed.

Modelling heat transfer and fluid flow in a ship engine room using CFD analysis to evaluate and improve ventilation

Considering that about 90% of international trade is transported via sea and ship ventilation systems consume between 3.5% and 5.5% of the ship’s rated power, ship energy consumption is of particular interest and modelling and enhancing ventilation systems are vital to reducing and optimising energy consumption. Using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulation, modelling heat transfer and airflow patterns helped us improve the ventilation system and temperature distribution, provide thermal comfort for staff and equipment, and increase energy efficiency. We discussed the radiation effect in CFD analysis; it affected wall temperatures significantly and temperature contours to some extent; it raised air temperatures by 3 K and wall temperatures by 14 K in some areas; this issue has not been considered in previous analyses. Considering seven different engine room configurations, we analysed temperature distribution, air terminal streamlines and other parameters to choose the best. We examined four energy-saving plans for the best configuration, and airflow was reduced by 13.8% and fan power by 36% based on the temperature distribution. By improving the engine room ventilation system, average engine room temperature, heat removal efficiency, combustion air temperature, and temperature distribution developed. The analysis of air terminals included assessing their streamlines, determining areas they circulated, and customising their airflow; in addition to vertical and horizontal air terminals at the top or bottom of the engine room, we also examined a separate air terminal for engine combustion air, this tool has been used very little before.

Safety evaluation of using ammonia as marine fuel by analysing gas dispersion in a ship engine room using CFD

ABSTRACT This paper seeks to address the question that each stakeholder in the maritime industry has about ammonia’s potential as a marine fuel, How safe is it to use ammonia as a fuel onboard vessel ? The principle aim of this paper is to quantify the exposure limits to which crew working onboard can get subjected to in a confined space onboard a vessel. It was achieved by simulating gas leaks at different locations inside an engine room of a hypothetical ammonia fuelled carrier similar to a 114,000 GWT LNG tanker using CFD. The transient nature of dispersion is analysed and compared for various scenarios. The results are promising and prove that ammonia does have a high risk due to its toxicity but a low risk in terms of flammability. Research findings also demonstrate that the gas dispersion depends on numerous factors such as position, area of leak, direction of leak, pressure and temperature of ammonia gas, obstruction due to placement of machinery and decks, ventilation, and the temperature gradient of surrounding material. The novelty of the paper lies in the problem it addresses and will contribute to the industry in a better understanding of the risk involved in operating an ammonia-fuelled vessel.

Digital Twin-Driven Approach for Process Management and Traceability towards Ship Industry

The digital twin (DT) approach has risen in popularity for applications in many industrial process managements. By applying the “Shipyard 4.0” digital transformation trend, the ship industry is developing techniques able to reduce risks by improving operation process management. This study proposes a combination of a DT approach and practical experiment as part of a five-tier framework for DT-driven process management in the ship industry. This study focuses on the characteristic scenarios and crucial parameters within the ship engine system and shipping cargo container in operation procedures. DT-based models and platforms are established in this study based on the basic modeling of Maya and scene rendering of Unity 3D. To address the fusion issue of multi-source heterogeneous data in the ship operation process, a Bayesian neural network (BNN) method is introduced into DT’s virtual model layer and data support layer. By integrating an improved BNN-based algorithm into DT-based models, the collected data can be extracted and aggregated accordingly. In the ship engine room, the operating temperature is selected as a critical parameter, with the best mean percentage deviation (MPD) between DT-driven predictions and test value of 3.18%. During the shipping cargo container process, the results indicate that DT-based models have acceptable performances under different conditions, with optimal MPDs of 5.22%.

Optimalisasi Perawatan Sistem Pendingin Mesin Utama Tipe Hansin GLU28AG Pada Kapal

The cooling system on the diesel engine is the main engine cooling system of the Hansin GLU28AG type on the KM Ship. Abadi Sejahtera is a closed cooling system using 2 media, namely freshwater media and seawater media. Maintenance according to the manual book serves to keep the cooling system working optimally. The purpose of this study is to find out the steps to optimize the maintenance of the main engine cooling system of the Hansin GLU28AG type on KM Ships. Abadi Sejahtera. This research was carried out in the engine room of the KM Ship. Abadi Sejahtera. The method used in this research is a qualitative descriptive approach. The data collection methods used are documentary methods, interview methods, and observation methods. From the results of the study showed the maintenance carried out in the cooling system of the main engine type Hansin GLU28AG on km ships. Abadi Sejahtera runs optimally. The average result after optimization of treatment by 90%. The implementation of maintenance on diesel engine cooling system components includes expansion tanks, fresh water pumps, fresh water coolers, sea chests.

Development of condition-based maintenance strategy for fault diagnosis for ship engine systems

Shipping effectively covers a large part of cargo transportation in the world in an economical and reliable way. Thus, energy-efficient operation on ships is an essential subject to ensure both increasing of the efficiency level of the global transportation and economic savings. In this subject, an effective maintenance strategy followed in the ship's engine room is one of the powerful solutions. In this way, system reliability and operational safety increase while operational expenses decrease. A condition-based strategy is an up-to-date approach for maintenance. Within this method, decisions could be made about the system based on past information. In this study, some parameters of the large-sized container ship are collected for the development of the condition-based maintenance strategy. The dataset is analysed by the artificial neural network in order to the constitution of the engine performance model. Finally, the usability and effectiveness of the developed maintenance strategy are demonstrated with three scenarios. As a result of the exemplified scenarios, the improved maintenance strategy ensures that the fault diagnosis could be made effectively, depending on the instant condition of the examined engine and its past information. The proposed methodology could also adapt to any system or engine for any kind of ship.

A RAM extension to enhance ship planned maintenance system

ABSTRACT This study develops a knowledge-based planned maintenance system (PMS) supported by reliability, availability and maintainability (RAM) analysis. The system enables maintenance plan revisions based on the data analysis which calculates instant RAM values and predicts the future trends. The visualised data is monitored to support decisions at both the operational and management level. The proposed system is demonstrated with the periodical data of the main engine installed onboard a container ship. Particularly, the data visualization is conducted on fuel injection valves. The results illustrate that the enhanced PMS system adds value to the timely and effective planning of routine and non-routine maintenance tasks onboard ships. Considering the existing potential of PMS applications onboard ships, the RAM analysis provides reasonable contributions to ship engine room crew and technical managers. The further study focuses on developing a maintenance planning app to digitalise the process and to strengthen compliance with ISM Code Clause 10 and TMSA 4A.4 requirements.

Review on Intelligent Diagnosis Technology of Electronically Controlled Fuel Injection System of ME Diesel Engine

ME diesel engine plays an important role in realizing energy conservation and environmental protection and improving the intelligent level of ship engine room. Because of its high technical content and high added value, using intelligent diagnosis technology to ensure safe and reliable work is an important means to realize intelligent engine room. Taking the ship electronic fuel injection system as an example, this paper introduces its working principle and common faults, analyzes and summarizes the research status of intelligent diagnosis technology at home and abroad in four aspects: fault mechanism, data measurement and feature extraction, fault mode classification and residual life prediction. Then, it analyzes the problems and future development trend of intelligent diagnosis technology, and points out that developing a health management system integrating weak fault signal extraction, multi-source data analysis, quantitative judgment of fault mode, remaining life prediction and maintenance suggestions is an important development goal in the future.

The Mathematical Model of Marine Engine Room Equipment Based on Machine Learning

This study is aimed at reducing the occurrence of oil spill accidents in the engine room of ships and carries out risk prevention for the equipment of the port ships, thereby reducing pollution to the marine ecological environment. Firstly, the concepts and principles of cluster analysis and ship automatic identification system are expounded. Secondly, the data information collected by the ship’s automatic identification system (AIS) is combined with density-based cluster analysis. The accident area and extent at different stages of the ship’s engine room equipment are classified. Finally, cluster analysis is used to evaluate the risk of equipment of the port ship engine room. The results show that there are 43000 ship operation information points in port a, the average operating speed of ships is 9 kilometers, and the fastest operation speed is 16.9 kilometers. In addition, many ship routes in port a need to take risk prevention measures to minimize the impact between ships and reduce the risk of oil leakage in the engine room. The proposed cabin model can easily and quickly analyze the orientation information of the ship and classify all the data into different types according to the surrounding information points. AIS can realize the information transfer between ships and between ship and shore. Information such as the position, speed, and direction of the ship needs to be accurately known to ensure safety at sea. These data need to relate to some terminals and networks to form a maritime monitoring network. The ship AIS based on cluster analysis can cluster the areas where the ship’s speed and direction change significantly in the port area, effectively preventing accidents. Scientific risk prevention measures can effectively reduce the oil leakage risk of ship engine room equipment, improve the working efficiency of marine engines, and provide a strong foundation for the entire marine ecological environment protection.

Bio‐modified pyrotechnic composite materials for firefighting application

SummaryThe traditional aerosol‐forming composites are a mixture of potassium nitrate/chlorate and synthetic resins like phenol‐formaldehyde, melamine‐formaldehyde, polyurethane, and epoxy resin. Though these synthetic organic resins have excellent adhesion and mechanical properties, their high flammability and associated life‐threatening occupational hazard have limited their application. Such compositions' combustion flame may reach up to 2100°C and cause secondary fire risk in an explosive atmosphere, especially ship engine rooms and oil‐producing platforms. This study aimed to investigate the ability of natural flame‐retardant tannic acid, which is a natural phenolic compound abundant in many plants, to reduce the exothermicity of potassium nitrate/chlorate‐based pyrotechnic composite. In the present work, we newly developed a pyrotechnic composition that employed tannic acid as a reducer instead of synthetic resin. Its combustion behaviour, thermal properties, and fire extinguishing performance were comparatively evaluated against phenolic resin‐based traditional pyrotechnic composition. Though both the new and traditional pyrotechnic composition has shown similar fire extinguishing efficacy, the newly developed composition showed 57% lower combustion flame temperature, faster burn rate, and lower calorific value than the traditional composition. The physical and chemical characteristics of the discharged aerosol were characterized by a series of techniques viz; high‐resolution X‐ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and energy dispersive X‐ray analysis to understand the fire extinguishing mechanism.

Smoke filling and entrainment behaviors of fire in a sealed ship engine room

Firefighting by sealing the cabin is often served as a final-taken and efficient means of suppressing ship fire. When a fire occurs in a closed engine room, it could cause the internal pressure increased and the oxygen concentration decreased, which further affects the fire burning processes. The interaction between the combustion processes and the changing environment makes sealed fires even complicated. This study investigates the behaviors of smoke plume entrainment and filling in a sealed ship engine room. Theoretical models regarding the plume entrainment and smoke filling are developed, respectively. A new reverse analysis method by coupling particle swarm optimization (PSO) with the smoke filling model is proposed to determine the unknowns in the plume entrainment model. Based on the experimental data in the literature and the reverse analysis, the explicit smoke filling model of sealed ship engine room is developed. Several previous experimental measurements and numeric simulations are used to validate its prediction ability. The results also suggest that a sealed fire has a higher smoke entrainment level than an open case. The proposed sealed ship engine room fire model can be applied to the engineering safety design of cases with potential sealed fires.

Measurement of Maximum Vibration After the Addition of the Gorger Construction to Evaluate the Side Deck Girder Construction Planning in the Ship Engine Room

Measurement of Maximum Vibration After the Addition of the Gorger Construction to Evaluate the Side Deck Girder Construction Planning in the Ship Engine Room

Experimental study on the combined effects of obstacles and local water mist on gas explosion for maritime safety

A variety of experimental configurations including different water mist obstacles, are used to investigate the combined effects of obstacles and water mist upon the gas explosion. The results demonstrate the 8 μm water mist can significantly inhibit the deflagration, while both 45 μm and 80 μm water mists exhibit the opposite effect under all the locally distributed positions of water spray nozzle without obstacles inside the vessel. When considering the obstacles, the 45 μm water mist starts to mitigate the deflagration and its mitigation effect is more significant than that induced by the 8 μm water mist. What's more, the 80 μm water mist can slow down the flame propagation speed while it would still lead to the gas explosion. Additionally, there remains unchanged about the effect of locally spraying 8 μm water mist upon deflagration at the initial stage of flame development as varying the position of obstacles, while the effects of mitigating deflagration by 45 μm and 80 μm water mist are decreased. The results will make contributions to design the arrangement of equipment and water mist configuration on the offshore platform or NG-fueled ship's engine room so as to mitigate the gas explosion accident. • An experimental study is conducted to analyze inhibitory effects of locally spraying water mist. • The inhibitory effects of different sizes and spray positions of water mist are presented. • The combined effects of obstacles and locally spraying water mist on deflagration explosion are presented. • The results are suitable for water mist arrangement on offshore platforms and ships engine rooms.

Accessibility for maintenance in the engine room: development and application of a prediction tool for operational costs estimation

ABSTRACT When dealing with maintenance in the ship's engine room, the space available around machinery and systems plays an important role. A proper clearance is usually indicated by the system supplier to perform maintenance operations. This space depends on the items dimensions, the kind of intervention and on the human operator, to avoid uncomfortable or dangerous positions. However sometimes the limited space in the engine rooms (as in warships, passenger ships, research vessels) implies critical issues in complying with such ideal clearances. This work aims to develop a tool to define a relation between the maintenance costs increase and the clearance reduction, regarding a single item and/or for the whole system. This tool improves the decision-making process during the design of engine room’s layout, enabling the comparison among different solutions in terms of operational costs. The approach relies on data-driven models and Bayesian inference. The predictive tool, inserted on the Systems Engineering methodology, has been tested on a real case.