External Systems News

A contract has been signed with the Tianjin Dredging Company, part of the China Communication Construction Company (CCCC) and the recently founded Dredging Group, under which Wärtsilä will supply the engines and all essential ancillaries for a new self-propelled cutter dredger. The vessel will be one of the largest and most advanced vessels of its type in the world, and will become CCCC Tianjin's flagship. The ship is being built at the Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industries shipyard in China. The contract was signed in June. "We have a strong relationship with Wärtsilä and we are confident that they can provide the technology and support needed to make this project a success," says Mr G.M Liu Chang Yun, Ship New Building Management Department, Tianjin Dredging Company of CCCC.

One of the world's largest non self-propelled cutter dredger vessels, which is also one of the largest of all cutter dredgers in the world with 5200 kW of cutter power, will feature Wärtsilä engines, both to generate power and to drive the dredging pump. The ship has been designed by the Design & Research Institute of Ship and Ocean Engineering at Shanghai Jiaotong University, and is being built for Jiangsu Haihong Construction Engineering Co. at the company's yard in China. The order with Wärtsilä was placed in December, 2014. The 6500 CBM vessel will be fitted with four 12-cylinder Wärtsilä 32 engines, two of which will be used to drive the dredging pump. For this application the 6000 kW engines will run at 775 rpm instead of the normal 750 rpm.

Improve marine design quality through standards based transfer of surface to and from external systems. AVEVA, an engineering design and information management solutions for the plant, power and marine industries, has announced  the release of AVEVA Surface Manager 12.1, another new product in its AVEVA Marine portfolio. AVEVA Surface Manager allows the transfer of surfaces to and from external systems, by the use of neutral standards offering greater flexibility and increased design quality.

AVEVA (LSE:AVV) announced the 12.1 release of its AVEVA Marine solution which is designed to offer enhanced reporting options, improved productivity and extended language support features. The enhanced reporting options offer an efficient tool, with an enriched User Interface, enabling sharing across many of the AVEVA Marine modules and other AVEVA products. The new and improved capability means that users are able to create report templates via a wizard and can inserts images and charts, making it easier to use with a more professional presentation.

The IMO deadline for fitting new ships with Automatic Identification Systems (AIS) is less than one year away. After July 1, 2002, all newbuilds over 300 grt must be equipped with an approved AIS transponder system. Leica Geosystems, one of the pioneering companies in AIS technology, recently published a 28-page book ("A Complete Guide to Automatic Identification Systems") that is loaded with useful information on AIS technology, how it works, international standards and carriage requirements. At the Norshipping exhibition in Oslo, Leica unveiled the first fully integrated GPS/DGPS/AIS shipboard system meeting all IMO, IEC and ITU equipment specifications. The following extracts are reprinted with permission from Leica Geosystems. What is AIS?

Common rail diesel technology is reliable, clean, economic, durable – and in the MAN Group it is now available for the engine of a small truck up to a large marine diesel. For service on the high seas the electronic injection system has again been improved. “Now this technology is where we wanted to have it,“ says Fritz Pape, Member of the Executive Board of MAN B&W. This in-house development combines conventional components of existing MAN injection systems with up-to-date hydraulic and electronic elements that have been developed further.

Late last month the MAN Group publicly announced the availability of a new engine which fully embodies the advantages of common rail diesel technology, meaning that it is designed to be particularly reliable, clean, economic and durable. "Now this technology is where we wanted to have it," says Fritz Pape, Member of the Executive Board of MAN B&W. This in-house development combines conventional components of existing MAN injection systems with up-to-date hydraulic and electronic elements that have been developed further. "It was a strategic decision to develop common rail for our engines ourselves in order to do better than what would have been possible with existing, external systems," said Pape. The result is the new engine type 32/40CR.

At the Seawork show to be held on June 18-20, in Southampton, UK, Transas will provide live demonstrations of its navigational equipment on board a Swedish High Speed Patrol Craft. The new Patrol Craft ENFORCER-II manufactured at the Docksta shipyard arrives from Gothenburg specially for participation at Seawork. This is a new project from the shipyard based on the very successful Combat Boat 90 H, but modified for Police / Coast Guard operations. All the navigation equipment installed onboard Enforcer-II, including GPS, compass, log, echo sounder, radar, electronic chart system, displays and computers, is provided by Transas Scandinavia, which has so far already supplied and installed complex navigation solutions onto over 200 high speed patrol vessels.

Norcontrol IT has recently concluded the installation of a complete Port Operations System for the Tees & Hartlepool Port Authority. The system has been designed to be one the world’s most robust vessel traffic management applications, and is capable of handling high volumes of traffic. Unlike most vessel traffic database applications, which merely record visits, vessel data, and related events and details, this next generation VTS Database (VDB) functions as the cornerstone of the ports' operational business systems. The application takes the first booking for a vessel, generates a unique reference number for each visit, and with that number facilitates the management of a vessel's visit from arrival to departure.