Analysis of ship accidents caused by unreliable operation of cooling systems of ship power plants

Abstract

The article considers transport accidents on watercrafts in inland waterways, sea and ocean waters caused by unreliable operation of the main systems during operation in ice and shallow water conditions difficult for naviga-tion and by the violations technical operation rules by the crew members. There are given the statistical data on the accidents and causes of accidents on the water. Frequent breakdowns due to unreliable operation of the open (two-circuit) cooling system of the ship’s power plants are stated. Open systems, in which fresh water circulating through cooled power equipment is cooled by the seawater, do not provide the required reliable operation in shallow water and broken ice, causing the shutdown of the ship power plant or an emergency situation. Mechanical impurities entering the cooling system cause corrosion-erosive destruction of the pipelines, main elements and operational load on seawater filters. In the winter, the operation of the ship in shallow sections of the routes leads to clogging of sea chests with small ice particles (studge ice) and a poor seawater intake for cooling ship power units. The ship systems fail using seawater, which makes difficult the operation of the cooling system of the power plant. It has been inferred that using closed cooling systems makes it possible to solve the problem of reliable functioning of the watercrafts in the conditions of shallow waters and broken ice.