MARINE PROPULSION groups, a more streamlined forebody and New marine a higher power rating for the propeller. Extensive calculations and tests were carried out by the shipyard at the marine propulsion concept test institute HSVA in Hamburg to make sure that the higher speed of 21 knots would actually be achieved. An increase with booster motor in the drive power rating would be necessary in any case, as would modifi- cations to the shape of the forebody. The Three US container ships were upgraded at the Hamburg shipyard of dimensions of the shortened container Blohm + Voss GmbH by shortening the vessels and installing a new ma- ship are also given in Table 1. rine propulsion system. The innovative drive system, which has an ABB The changes that had to be made to motor and generator, has boosted the speed of the ships considerably. the body of the ship called for precision Instead of ‘power take off’, it makes use of the ‘power take in’ concept work of a kind that could only be carried to transmit electrical energy to the main shaft. ABB Industrietechnik AG out by a shipyard as experienced as supplied the complete 4-MW electrical booster plants as well as the Blohm + Voss GmbH. For example, dur- electrical equipment for the bow thrusters. ing removal of the midbody (with three hatch groups) a flame-cut with a length of 330 m had to be made in one operation Operators of container ships have was to reduce their length by three hatch and with an accuracy that would ensure had to adjust to a vastly changed situ- groups and to equip each of them with that no remachining of the ships’ storage tation in recent years. The need today a new forebody and afterbody plus a structures would be necessary after the is for faster, smaller container vessels new propulsion plant. The idea, however, forebody and afterbody had been floated with a capacity of 2,500 to 6,000 TEU was rejected as being economically unvi- back together 2 . In addition, the electri- (equivalent unit for 20-foot containers) able. cal power connections between the two and able to travel at a speed of at least Alternative solutions also fell through halves of the ship, involving about 350 21 knots. as they could not be fitted into time cables and large numbers of pipes, had schedules, for example, for the construc- to be separated. tion of new parts in other countries. After the midbody had been cut out Modernization of ECON ships and temporary bulkheads had been Recognizing the trend, the Sea-Land fitted, the forebody and the midbody Division of CSX Corporation in the USA SL-31 – a brand new concept were floated and pulled out of the dock began looking for ways to modernize its The shipyard and shipowner eventually by tugs. Afterwards, the forebody was large and relatively slow container ships. agreed on a completely new concept. moved to within about 300 mm of the These were built in Korea in the early The project name that was chosen was afterbody. The dock was then floated 1980s as so-called ECON ships for SL-31 (SL stands for Sea-Land, 3 for again and the forebody pushed up United States Lines (USL). 3,000 TEU and 1 for 21 knots) 1 . It pro- against the afterbody, aligned, tacked, The vessels, which when new were posed a reduction in the length of the and welded in place. The most critical among the most economical container ACV container ships by three hatch part of this operation was the maneuvring ships in service, originally had a storage and alignment of the two halves. Very capacity of approximately 3,900 TEU and high precision was necessary, as a devi- a speed of 18 knots. USL operated the ation of just a few millimeters from the ships as Atlantic Class Vessels (ACV). original longitudinal axis would translate Table 1 shows their as-built dimensions. into a loss of speed. Optical measuring Ten years later, speed had become the equipment was used to ensure a perfect dominating factor for these vessels, with Thomas Fetzberger fit. large container capacities given only a Carola Kuhrau It is worth remembering that the parts second priority [2]. The most obvious ABB Industrietechnik AG being maneuvred weighed several thou- way to increase the speed of the ships sand tonnes, and that they had to be 28 ABB Review 3/1997 MARINE PROPULSION a b ACV container ship conversion based on the SL-31 concept 1 a Forebody cut away and mid-body removed b Shortened ship with new forebody moved by tugs to precise positions in the Reversal of the conventional 6.6-kV electric motor to the main drive dock. This part of the modernization shaft generator concept shaft by means of tunnel gearing which is alone was a considerable achievement To raise the drive power rating to the flanged via a Vulcan coupling to the fly- on the part of the shipyard. required level, Blohm + Voss GmbH de- wheel of the main machine 6 , 7 . The veloped a new, unconventional concept electric motor is fed with 4,860 kW that ‘reverses’ the standard shaft gener- (100 %) or 4,374 kW (90 %) from an addi- Increasing the drive power ator system commonly in use. Previously, tional Wärtsilä-Diesel generator set with A new approach was also necessary electrical power has been fed into the on- 6-MVA alternator of type 12 R 32. The for the upgrade of the container ships’ board power system from the main ma- high-voltage switchgear and diesel-gen- propulsion. The installed machines, chine by means of a gear system with at- erator set are installed in a new engine Sulzer 7 RLB 90 engines, were rated tached generator. The new drive makes room on the main deck. Many new, inno- at 20,590 kW (100 %) and 18,530 kW use of the ‘power take in’ instead of vative control features were required to (90 %). In order to run the ships at ‘power take off’ concept 5 . In this link the slow-speed main machine to the 21 knots without converting the vessels, method, 4,000 kW is transmitted via a electric motor via the tunnel gearing. it would have been necessary to increase the engine power to about 40,000 kW. By streamlining the forebody through hy- drodynamic improvements, an initial Table 1: power saving of 3,700 kW could be Main dimensions and speed of the container ships achieved 3 . Also, the reduction in length Before conversion After conversion by three hatchgroups reduced the ships’ Atlantic Class Vessel SL-31 frictional resistance, allowing a further saving of 1,500 kW 4 . Together, these Length 279.00 m 248.26 m Beam 32.20 m unchanged modifications improved the power by Height 21.50 m unchanged 5,200 kW. Therefore, to achieve the Draught, full load 11.676 m unchanged required 21 knots in service, an addi- Speed tional 3,800 to 4,000 kW would have to (draught = 10 m) 18.0 knots 21.0 knots be fed into the propeller shaft system. ABB Review 3/1997 29 MARINE PROPULSION Tests with a draught of 10 m and a speed of 21 knots showed the power de- mand to be 18,639 kW, giving a safety margin of 521 kW. Converting this extra power into speed, the maximum speed which is possible is 21.2 knots. Two alternative concepts for increas- ing the drive output had also been con- sidered, but were rejected after detailed discussions: • Two additional diesel-mechanical Z-type propellers with one diesel en- gine as primary drive system, plus di- rect transmission of the power via gearing to port and starboard pro- pellers. The two side propellers in this concept would have produced con- Sea-Land Pride (formerly Galveston Bay) in Dock 10 after the forebody 2 siderable turbulence, influencing the had been cut away. The midbody is being prepared for removal. water flow at the main propeller and Photo: Blohm + Voss GmbH reducing its efficiency. • Two diesel-electric drive systems in which each propeller is driven by an The power is transmitted to the water propeller is 0.5 m smaller in diameter electric motor and electrical energy is by a new KaMeWa controllable pitch pro- than the original one, its special shape generated by diesel-generators. This peller with a diameter of 7.1 m. This pro- enables it to produce 20 percent more method would have incurred even peller can absorb up to 24,400 kW, power. Using the machine data as basis, higher system costs than the first which is also the maximum power trans- the propeller power was calculated to be method. mitted to the shaft. Although the new 19,160 kW. Booster drive system is patented The new forebody is brought into position. 3 The concept with the booster drive unites Photo: Blohm + Voss GmbH proven components in a completely new way to obtain PTO instead of PTI. The described system has meanwhile been patented [2]. Power transmission to the main shaft has never been realized before in this form. As with many seemingly simple sol- utions, it was the small details that caused the main problems. A slow-speed diesel engine with oscillating torque had never before been combined with a con- stant-torque electric motor on a propeller shaft. To protect the electric motor and gearing system from the vibrations caused by the main machine, tunnel gearing was chosen. This transmits the electric motor power via a multi-disc clutch to the gear system and then via 30 ABB Review 3/1997 MARINE PROPULSION The Sea-Land Pride in Dock 10 4 after conversion.