FEASIBILITY OF ELECTRIC PROPULSION FOR SEMI-SUBMERSIBLE HEAVY LIFT VESSELS

摘要

Some of the semi-submersible heavy lift vessels have special requirements that make electric propulsion an attractive alternative compared to conventional diesel-mechanic solution. These requirements include dynamic positioning, redundancy, and machinery location, space and weight restrictions. This paper presents electric power plant alternatives including both traditional AC as well as new Onboard DC Grid solutions. In addition to power plant concepts, different propeller and thruster alternatives accompanied with electric propulsion are discussed. These include shaft line propulsion, mechanical thrusters and podded thrusters. Finally, a reference electric propulsion package for semi-submersible heavy lift vessel is defined and comparison is made between AC and Onboard DC Grid solutions considering installation cost, weight saving and operation cost.