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Kvaerner Floro News

07 Nov 2001

Towards the Intelligent Engine

Providing a beacon for the industry by embracing the world's first, fully electronically-controlled two-stroke marine engine, Norwegian chemical tanker specialist Odfjell is starting to see operating benefits resulting from its pioneering step. Long-run performance of the system applied to the main engine of the 37,500-dwt parcel tanker Bow Cecil last fall will have a signal bearing on shipowners' future commercial uptake of the technology, as encapsulated in MAN B&W's ME diesel program. In the meantime, the engineers aboard Bow Cecil have found the electronic system to be a valuable tool in optimizing combustion performance, facilitating engine tuning and adjustments in accordance with changing operating conditions and with regularly experienced, marked variations in bunker properties.

15 Jun 2000

Marine Innovations

In extending its adherence to delivering cost-efficient and safety driven technologies, DNV has introduced a new means of quickly and accurately determining steel thickness can speed ship surveys. It is especially valuable in inspecting old and corroded steelwork. Present-day methods, based on ultrasonic thickness measurements, are said to have dubious reliability on heavily corroded plates, and for large vessels are also considered too slow. The basic technological challenge was to transmit 100 percent of the signal energy through corroded steel plates, and receive and interpret the reflected signal to give an accurate thickness measurement. The basic principles of the new measuring method (half-wave resonance) have been known for 40 years.

06 Dec 2000

A Pointer to the Future

Developments in vessel powering, propulsion and related systems over the past decade, in particular, have had a fundamental bearing both on maritime technological advance as a whole, and on the ultimate efficiency and competitiveness of shipping in its manifold forms. Marine engine designers and producers devote considerable resources to driving the technology forward, marrying the client markets' ever-more pressing expectations as to economy and reliability with new environmental standards. The process demands not only a certain scale and the requisite know-how and long-term strategic vision, but also pure industrial will. Through the endeavors of MAN B&W Diesel's Danish subsidiary…