Wärtsilä has been awarded the contract to supply the propulsion equipment for a new, state-of-the-art, research vessel.
The vessel will be operated by the UK’s Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), and is to be built at the C.N.P. Freire S.A. shipyard in Spain. The NERC is the UK's main agency for funding and managing research, training and knowledge exchange in the environmental sciences.
The contract calls for Wärtsilä to supply four of its 8-cylinder in-line Wärtsilä 20 main diesel electric generating sets, two main propulsion steerable thrusters, one bow retractable thrusters, and a complete Low Loss Concept diesel electric system. The majority of the Wärtsilä equipment will be delivered by the end of 2011, and the ship is scheduled to be launched before the end of 2012.
Edward Cooper, the NERC’s Project Officer, commented: “It is vital that the ship’s systems are designed in such a way that the research activities, for which this ship is intended, can be carried out in the most effective way possible. For this reason, we are delighted to co-operate with Wärtsilä, whose technology in this field is clearly very advanced. In particular, Wärtsilä’s underwater noise abatement measures are critical to the research work.”
The new research ship will provide a state-of-the-art platform for researchers to address some of the world’s most pressing environmental issues. It will enable them to take measurements from the oceans that could lead to critical information regarding climate change, marine ecosystems, and underwater seismic activity.
Special attention is to be paid to noise related issues on the main steerable thrusters in order to comply with low URN requirements. These include the modification of the shank and pod to give a more hydrodynamic shape, and a special fixed pitch propeller design adapted to the specific wake field of the vessel. In addition, the generator sets will be double elastically mounted to ensure the lowest possible vibration is transmitted to the ships structure. The Wärtsilä Low Loss Concept diesel electric system will reduce electrical losses, which in turn reduces the power requirement, and hence CO2 emissions. The main steerable thrusters are to be Ice Class 1D compliant.
