The days of anonymity at sea are long gone. With LRIT and satellite based AIS tracking the office has, for some time now, had access to the precise location of your ship… in real time. The next wave of innovation came with remote monitoring systems used for reasons as diverse as anti-piracy monitoring and live webcams from the bridge of cruise ships.

While remote monitoring of vessel operations may be a popular upgrade for the vessel manager of tomorrow, for those of us working aboard ships it will create more questions, and subsequent phone calls from shore, than it answers. The next wave of technology, however, might actually be helpful to the average mariner… remote system management.

To this end Wartsilla is the first major marine manufacturer to announce remote management with it’s new Condition Based Monitoring service. In a recent press release they tell us:

The CBM on-line service uses a combination of on-line monitoring of mechanical and thermal condition (with in-built sensors, for example), system efficiency data and many other indicators to assess the condition of an engine. All this information in the shipboard system in real time transmitted 24/7 to Wärtsilä service engineers at the CBM Centre in Vaasa, Finland, Wärtsilä Norway and the Seadrill office in Stavanger Norway. The service team then accurately assess the overall status and condition of the plant – and ultimately the maintenance it needs, and make regular reports to the engine users based on established guidelines and specific operating conditions.

Marine installations use satellite communication to connect to the CBM Centre. An engine installation can be connected to the CBM Centre through the Internet using a VPN (Virtual Private Network) connection or through the e-mail server onboard the ship. There is also a manual alternative for data collection and e-mail sending which uses Wärtsilä’s special software.

Once connected, the CBM Centre receives operation data information about the specific engines including load and ambient conditions. The received data are automatically analyzed by the special Wärtsilä developed analyzing software. The most common for marine installations is still to send a batch of operating data once a day to assess engine condition. In the future the 24/7 online connections will be more and more common because of the increasing satellite connection capacity and reduced data transfer costs.

While more than a few Captains will probably continue to experience “unexpected” communications failure when they don’t want calls from the office… they might first have to clear outages with the Chief.

September 2009 saw the initial operation of the first high temperature fuel cell to be run on board of a ship.  The operation was launched as part of the FellowSHIP research project (Fuel Cells for Low Emission Ships): a project to test fully integrated on-board fuel cells – both on board of vessels, as well as offshore platforms – and to make them commercially viable.

The Tognum supplied HotModule is scheduled for service on the Norwegian offshore supply vessel “Viking Lady” to first test its suitability for green on-board power generation by means of fuel cells. The HotModule is fully integrated in the existing on-board power generation infrastructure of the vessel, delivering 320 kW of the current power supply requirements, whilst being powered by liquefied natural gas (LNG).

The integration of fuel cells on board ships serves to significantly reduce health-hazardous and climate-critical emissions: an estimated total of 4,755 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2), 33 tons of sulfur dioxide (SO2), as well as 180 tons of nitrogen oxides (NOx) – that equal to about 20,000 cars – can be avoided this way every year. The electrochemical process seen in fuel cells mainly generates water and heat.

Participants in this project include MTU Onsite Energy, as well as a number of internationally renowned companies like Wärtsilä Ship Design Norway, Wärtsilä Automation Norway and Eidesvik Offshore ASA.

More on this project can be read HERE

Never Sea Land brings us the largest engine ever built:

The Wartsila-Sulzer RTA96-C turbocharged two-stroke diesel ship engine is the most powerful and most efficient prime-mover in the world today. The Aioi Works of Japan’s Diesel United, Ltd built the first engines and is where some of these pictures were taken.

It is available in 6 through 14 cylinder versions, all are inline engines. These engines were designed primarily for very large container ships. Ship owners like a single engine/single propeller design and the new generation of larger container ships needed a bigger engine to propel them.

The cylinder bore is just under 38″ and the stroke is just over 98″.

The engine weighs in at 2,300 tons and is capable of delivering 109,000 horsepower.

The largest piston in the world!

More Enormous Piston Rods.

“DU-Sulzer 12RT A96C” translated to “One large MFD”

How it works.

So you’re wondering what this behemoth powers… right? Nothing less impressive than the

Emma Maersk

.

The Emma Maersk, underway at full speed.

Small tugboat pulls the world’s largest ship into port.

Emma Maersk as she looks from the sky.

A Comparison of the World’s Largest Ships (from the Wall Street Journal) . We hate to tell the world’s premier business newspaper they forgot one… but they did. Larger than Emma Maersk is the The Ultra Large Crude Carrier (now an FPSO) Knock Nevis... formerly known as Seawise Giant, Happy Giant, and Jahre Viking.

Think that’s impressive…. what if she ever caught fire??

SHE DID: Emma Maersk Fire

For more horsepower check out our previous ship’s engineer posts:

• Maersk Container Ship Engine Room Tour
• Victory Ship Engine Room Tour
• Photo Of An Engine
• Ship Engine Falls Off Truck – San Diego
• CO2 Firefighting and an Engine Room Fire

References:

• Ports and Ships Maritime News
• Wartsila Press Release

Post links via Fred Fry via Never Sea Land via Maritime News Discoverer

The Russian Ministry of Gas ordered the self- propelled crane vessel “Stanislav Yudin” from the Finnish Wartsilla shipyard in 1982.

The crane fitted on the stern of the vessel was designed by GustoMSC and built by Kone Oy in Finland.

The vessel built by Wärtsilla has a length of approx. 183 m, a width of 36 m and a depth of 13 m. The crane was originally designed with two 800-ton main hooks, which could be operated separately, a 400 ton auxiliary hook and a trolley with a 30 ton hook which could travel along the length of the box girder crane boom. To lift the maximum load of 1,600 tons, the 2 main hooks can be used independently allowing an angle with the vertical of up to 15° or they can be coupled together by a hoisting beam with a 1,600 ton hook.

As the vessel has an active ballast system and a minimum draught was required, the weight of the crane is minimized by omitting the counterweight and by using high tensile steel.

The crane moment is taken by the GustoMSC bogie and counter bogie system, which has already successfully been applied on a wide variety of vessels.

Since it came into operation with Seaway Heavy Lifting B.V., the main and auxiliary hoists were upgraded (in 1992) to 2,000 tons for the main hook and 500 tons for the auxiliary hook. Later on the main hoist winches were enlarged for increased wire rope storage capacity (for deep water hoisting applications).

In 1996 the Stanislav Yudin was again upgraded to a main hook load of 2,500 tons. The hoisting, traveling and derrick winches as well as the slewing gear are driven by DC motors with a total power of 4,300 kW.

Source: GustoMSC

These are just a few excerpts of the September 23 press release from Wärtsilä:

Wärtsilä has received major orders for its recently established Wärtsilä Ship Design unit. The orders were received from customers in China, India and Germany. The Ship Design unit was set up following the acquisitions of the ship design companies Vik-Sandvik and Schiffko. The most recent acquisition, the Singaporean based Conan Wu & Associates will also be part of the Ship Design unit.

The orders call for Wärtsilä to design a Deepwater Engineering Survey Vessel, a Multi-Purpose Support Vessel, a Diving Support Vessel, and an Emergency Towing Vessel. Each of these contracts comes as a result of successful bids to design sophisticated tonnage.

Now let’s hear about the vessel’s.

The Deepwater Engineering Survey Vessel design is for China Oilfield Services Ltd, and represents a 4300-dwt vessel capable of drilling operating at deep water for geotechnical surveys and geophysical surveys. To date, most of China’s oil exploration has been in relatively shallow waters, but there is now a need to probe deeper.

The Chinese state-owned Shanghai Salvage Company has ordered its Multi-Purpose Support Vessel design from Wärtsilä in order to carry out year-round tasks along the coastline of China. The key requirement is for multi-purpose flexibility since the vessel will be required to carry out a multitude of different operations, including salvage, offshore engineering services, diving and ROV operations, fire-fighting, anchor handling, ship supply, environmental protection, and route clearing.

The 4500-dwt Diving Support Vessel design has been ordered by India’s Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited (ONGC), and will provide a stable platform for saturation and air-diving operations. In addition to diving operations and construction work, the vessel is to provide field support and will, therefore, be fitted with sophisticated fire-fighting and oil recovery equipment.

In Europe, Wärtsilä has completed an Emergency Towing Vessel design for the German company ARGE Küstenschutz. Because the vessel is intended for North Sea operation, the main criteria in producing this ultra-modern design have been manoeuvrability, and the capability of maintaining position effectively in harsh weather conditions.

You can find the full press release from Wärtsilä HERE.

Wärtsilä-Hyundai Engine Company Ltd., the new joint venture between Wärtsilä and Hyundai Heavy Industries in South Korea, has received a major order. The order calls for a total of 16 Wärtsilä 50DF-engines for four ships to be built by Samsung Heavy Industries. The contract also includes an option of four more engines for a fifth vessel. The order is recorded in the order book of Wärtsilä-Hyundai Engine Company Ltd.

The engines are to be installed on so called Floating Production Storage Offloading (FPSO) vessels ordered by FLEX LNG. The first engine will be delivered in February 2010.

Read the full press release HERE

About the Wärtsilä 50DF:

The new Wärtsilä 50DF applies the sophisticated tri-fuel technology incorporated in the reliable and well-tried Wärtsilä 46 HFO engine. It can be run either on natural gas or on light fuel oil (LFO) or on heavy fuel oil (HFO). The engine can smoothly switch between fuels during engine operation and is designed to give the same output regardless of the fuel.

The engine operates on the lean-burn principle. Lean combustion enables high compression ratio which increases engine efficiency and reduces peak temperatures, and therefore also reduces NOx emissions.

Both the gas admission and pilot fuel injection are electronically controlled. The engine functions are controlled by an advanced automation system that allows optimum running conditions to be set independent of the ambient conditions or fuel.

via www.wartsila.com

Check out these links to previous gCaptian posts on Wärtsilä’s most mind boggling creations:

The Wartsila-Sulzer Super Engine

Starting the Wartsila – Video

A Fuel Cell for Ships

Our friend Jean Pierre de Lutz is building a new boat using green technology and writing about it on his blog. Knowing we are interested in new technology geared toward reducing ship emissions he pointed us to the European Union funded project Wartsila METHAPU. Here are the details:

After nearly one and a half years of research and development, the EU-funded METHAPU (‘Validation of renewable methanol based auxiliary power systems for commercial vessels’) project is about to start trials on a prototype of a methanol-based solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) unit. The protoype will be tried and tested for performance and emissions under real-life conditions onboard a car transport vessel involved in international trade.

According to the independent Norwegian organisation Det Norske Veritas (DNV), one of the five project partners, the world’s fleet of ships is the source of two percent of global carbon dioxide emissions, ten percent to 15 percent of nitrous oxides (NOx) and four percent to six percent of sulphur oxides. DNV specialises in risk management in various areas and operates internationally. ‘Fuel cells represent an interesting possible solution to the problem of reducing local and regional emissions,’ the DNV comments in its report on ‘Fuel cells in ships: safety & reliability’. ‘The technology is, however, still fairly unproven.’

This is what the EUR 2 million METHAPU project, to which the EU contributes EUR 1 million, is set to change: The one-year trial will help to assess the maturity of methanol-based technology and its suitability for daily use in the shipping sector.

You can read the full article HERE.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Starting a Wärtsilä 6 L 64… for a truly amazing engine read our post: The Wartsila-Sulzer Super Engine