Tom Austin

Took a break from work @ the Port of Baltimore today to take a tour of one of the ships that brings the cars to Baltimore from Bremerhaven, Germany. While I've toured a few of these ships before, this is one of the newest, and largest in the WWL fleet - and was built in 2015 to utilize the new lane in the Panama Canal. The tour included all areas of the ship - and we spent @ 20 minutes in the engine room. It's 3 stories tall! . . . and the enigine itself is a straight 8 turbo diesel that pumps out 10,000 HP. Each piston is @ 20" across, and the connecting rods are @ 10 feet long! At full speed (21 knots) the engine is turning a leisurely 101 RPMs! The ship holds enough fuel to travel for 3.5 months at sea! Even had lunch with the Captain! Overall . . . a great day at the office! Here's a link to the ship that is currently headed south in the Chesapeake Bay:

http://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/...el:THERMOPYLAE

Tom

Easy Rhino

I hope I'm not being rude to point out that the Nimitz-class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier puts out over 250,000 shaft horsepower.

Our nuclear subs put out somewhat less, but with a single reactor, and are still quite quick submerged.

ChattanoogaJSB

Tom- that's extremely cool!

fyreline

I guess it's a given that anyone who is into Corvettes would be into ships. It's a natural fit. Sounds like you had a great day - I'm envious.

hedgehead

You would need a heavy duty trailer hitch.

3JsVette

All I can say is massive.

SWCDuke

10,000 HP sounds low for an 8-cylinder engine that size. Was is a single engine or twin?

The largest current marine diesel - a turbocharged two-stroke, as are most - is made by Wartsila.... three-foot bore, seven foot stroke - about 7000 HP per cylinder at 102 RPM. Typical cruise is about 90, which works out to 1260 ft/min mean piston speed. It can be configured from 5 to 14 inline cylinders.

What's really interesting about these engines is that they operate at about 50 percent brake thermal efficiency. A modern automotive spark ignition engine might be 30-35 percent at low speed, high load without fuel enrichment, but around town driving is probably no more than 15 percent due to all the idling and 20-25 percent at freeway cruise speed.

Duke

Tom Austin

Hi Duke,

This engine was an in-line straight 8 cylinder engine. There were 2 pistons/connecting rods sitting on racks outside the engine - I'd estimate the the pistons were @ 20" across, so a 20 inch bore. It was a very interesting set up - there were actually 8 large doors on the lower crank portion of the engine so that the tech's could go in there and unbolt the connecting rods! Amazing stuff.

The Captain told me @ lunch 10,000 HP . . . but, he was from India and had a heavy accent - it could have been 12,000. All I know is - it was BIG! The last ship that I was on only had a straight 5 cylinder!

Tom

BADBIRDCAGE

I was on a Japanese car carrier ship in the 1980's. I asked the captain if he would show me the engine room. He said yes but asked , "WHY" . I told him I had worked in the automotive machine shop trade for 15 years and that I was interested in seeing the powerplant. Have to say that it was impressive. Multiple stories high and that huge engine sitiing idle as the ship was at anchor.

Ship was almost pure computer controlled. Nine man crew for a vessel carrying 3,500 cars from Japan to the U.S.