“The Delightful Frustration of Cruise Ship Power Plant Design”
Author: Rik van Hemmen, Kyle Antonini
Presented at ASME/SAME/SNAME Philadelphia joint meeting, January 24, 2017
Cruise ships are self-sustained communities. Like space ships, they cannot grow their own food and need to carry power, but beyond that they provide every need for passengers and crew for an extended period of time. The powering of cruise ships is a complex issue that is driven by the complete ship design spiral, which itself has become much more complex due to the inclusion of the environmental and the human factors component.
This presentation discusses the wide variety of design options and constraints that have been available historically and new technologies and regulations that are coming on-line. These issues will be put in the context of the cruise ship power plant, which is a necessary evil that eats fuel, requires maintenance and robs space and weight carrying capacity from money earning passenger capacity.
Today, the power plant design options are much larger than they were at the inception of the cruise ship as a commercial concept, and the advantages and disadvantages of the various prime movers, power distribution concepts and propulsion technologies will be discussed. These options will also be compared to famous and less famous cruise ship system failures.
To download the full paper click this link: DEVELOPMENT OF CRUISE SHIPS AND THEIR POWER PLANTS