Thermal displacement of crankshaft axis of slow-speed marine engine

Abstract

The paper presents analysis of displacement of a crankshaft axis caused by temperature of marine, slow-speed main engine. Information of thermal displacement of a power transmission system axis is significant during a shaft line alignment and a crankshaft springing analysis. Warmed-up main engine is a source of deformations of an engine body as well as a ship hull in the area of an engine room and hence axis of a crankshaft and a shaftline. Engines’ producers recommend the model of parallel displacement of the crankshaft axis under the influence of an engine heat. The model gives us the value (one number!) of the crankshaft axis displacement in the hot propulsion system’s condition. This model may be too simple in some cases. Presented numerical analyses are based on temperature measurements of the main engine body and the ship hull during a sea voyage. The paper presents computations of MAN B&W K98MC type engine (power: 40000 kW, revolutions: 94 rpm) mounted on 4500 TEU container ship (length: 290 m). Propulsion system is working in nominal, steady-state conditions; it is the basic assumption during the analyses. Numerical analyses were preformed with usage of Nastran software based on Finite Element Method. The FEM model of the engine body comprised over 800 thousand degree of freedom. Stiffness of the ship hull (mainly double bottom) with the foundation was modelled by a simple cuboid. Material properties of that cuboid were determined on the base of separately performed calculations.