Diesel - Electric propulsion of the reconstructed paddle wheel river ship "Krajina"

Abstract

The paper present the electric propulsion solution adopted when reconstructing the only paddle wheel ship in Yugoslavia. The 75 years old ship "Dragor-Krajina" is changing designation to a sightseeing ship for promenade and touring and will transport passengers around Belgrade. The ship, 56,82m long and 12,30m wide, will have two main diesel-electric propulsion installations of 230kW power each. There will not be any auxiliary installation. The diesel-electric installation will supply ship's electric distribution and drive hydraulic pumps for the steering of the ship. The ship's consumers will absorb up to 100kW power and the rest will be used for the wheel propulsion. With propulsion power of 2 × 125kW, it is expected, while downstream navigating and with paddle wheel speed of 35min -1 , that the ship will obtain a speed of 21,5km/h. While upstream navigating with paddle wheel speed of 52min -1 , it is expected that the ship will obtain a speed of 17,5km/h. It has been shown that electric propulsion for this type of installation has significant advantages for start up and stop procedures. The original hydraulic and manual steering has been retained and it is also possible to steer the ship by independent speed control of the paddle wheels. The problems of paddle wheels' uneven absorptions in the fast waters and the advantages of electric propulsion in this case were separately considered. Another special advantage is normal working regimes with one or both diesels operating. Copyright © IMarEST 2005 - all rights reserved.