If a steam propulsion plant is provided with two main propulsion boilers, two fuel oil service heaters, two fuel oil service pumps, and two fuel oil settling tanks, what is the capacity of each fuel oil service heater?
• Redundancy requirements for vital systems in a steam propulsion plant • How loss of one component (pump or heater) should affect the ability to keep both boilers on line • Relationship between number of units installed and the minimum capacity each one must be able to handle for safe operation
• If one fuel oil service heater fails, what must the plant still be able to do to safely operate the ship? • Think about why the system has two service pumps – what is the usual design philosophy for pumps on essential services? • In an emergency, with one piece of equipment out of service, what is the minimum acceptable number of boilers that should still be able to get properly heated fuel?
• Check typical design logic for essential systems: N+1 redundancy versus splitting capacity 50/50 between units. • Consider whether a single failure (one pump or one heater) should ever force you to shut down one boiler or both boilers. • Verify whether the safer design is that each heater handles half the total load or all of the total load if the other fails.
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