Chinese Marine Propulsion
- Thread starter jobjed
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There are lots of ways to build an efficient turbine. For power generators it’s quite normal to have a turbine design that tries to gain more efficiency or
power generation by adding more turbine cycles to extract more mechanical energy. This is what can lead to turbines with very low power to weight ratios. Perfectly acceptable for a turbine meant for an electric power plant but pretty detrimental to usage in a ship.
broadsword
Brigadier
We don't know whether Dongfang has added supplementary turbine cycles to extract more efficiency. But still 2X or 3X more than a diesel engine or their previous design of the same capacity sounds like a work by a farmer as a hobby or a car mechanic in his workshop or Adam Savage's project. No, Dongfang has not started making turbines this year.
But we know Dongfang has been exporting their turbines to all over the world, competing against the Western brands. GE's latest LM2500+G4 generates 47,370 shp, so Dongfang might be positioning themselves for entry into the market of powering large container ships and LNG carriers.
Adding more cycles to a turbine is not farmer or hobby work. It’s a specific design approach meant to meet a specific set of engineering and economic parameters. I am not saying Dongfang’s turbine is definitely an example of this sort of turbine, just that we cannot conclude that it is turbine that can be used for marine applications given that there are multiple different kinds of turbine designs and we don’t know any details about the turbine design. Simply looking at the power rating tells us nothing about applicability, no more than looking at the thrust rating of jet engine tells us whether the engine can be used for civilian, military transport, or fighter planes. Nor can you simply approximate this based on some presumption of reputational logic.
broadsword
Brigadier
An industrial turbine made by Dongfang which has been making world class turbines of world standard could be repurposed for marine use without much difficulty.
GE makes world class turbines. Not every one of their turbine designs can be repurposed for marine use. Not all gas turbine designs have identical range of applicability.
broadsword
Brigadier
GE is targeting their LM2500 for container ships and LNG carriers. Demand will be there when environmental concern increases in future. A high capacity turbine of 50MW has only a small market, it is only natural to make it multi-purpose and only a high tech one will do.
GE has a lot of different gas turbine designs, not just the LM2500. Some of those turbine designs aren’t compatible with marine applications. Just because you can apply one design to one use condition doesn’t mean all designs can be applied to that use condition.
broadsword
Brigadier
Who's saying about other designs? And I am not saying Donfang's other designs. But there has been talk by researchers and marine industry specialists of using industrial gas turbines for marine use.
Look at China's R&D development on gas turbines for naval use here:
Liftoff for heavy-duty gas turbines
By Zhong Nan | chinadaily.com.cn | Updated: 2017-02-15 21:08
Breakthrough made for use in aircraft carriers
China has made major breakthroughs in the core design and manufacturing technology of heavy-duty gas turbines that can be installed in aircraft carriers, according to a research institute at Tsinghua University.
The domestically made CGT-60F, an F-class heavy-duty gas turbine, jointly manufactured by the Gas Turbine Research Center of Tsinghua University and a number of companies including Shanghai Electric Group Co Ltd and Dongfang Electric Corp, has passed high-temperature cooling experiment tests at the Beijing-based China Gas Turbine Research Establishment.
The heavy-duty gas turbine can tolerate temperatures of up to 1,400 C.
Jiang Hongde, one of the project leaders and a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said the test results, including the cooling effectiveness and temperature distribution, were all better than expected.
All of the components of this high-end gas turbine are made in China. The prototype was made by Shanghai Turbine Co Ltd, with full intellectual property rights.
China currently can only develop heavy-duty gas turbines based on Ukrainian technology, as Western countries, including the United States and France, do not allow their manufacturers to export such products to China due to national security issues.
Aviation Industry Corporation of China has adopted the Ukraine-made R0110 heavy-duty gas turbine with 110 megawatts of heating power. However, this type of gas turbine can only be applied in electric power generation and cannot be used in ships.
Dong Liwan, a shipbuilding professor at Shanghai Maritime University, said that the work to adapt it for naval use still has a long way to go.
He said whether steam or gas turbines are used in China’s first domestically manufactured aircraft carrier will depend on the nation’s development of high-efficiency gas turbines.
Breakthroughs on materials and technologies can build a solid foundation for domestically made heavy-duty gas turbines used in ships.
“We are eager to catch up with established rivals in the field in the US and Europe, so China will encourage crowd innovation, crowdfunding and other innovative business techniques to further support the Made in China 2025 strategy, especially in its mature and fast-growing sectors,” said Sun Fuquan, a researcher specializing in military-related products at the Chinese Academy of Science and
Technology for Development.
Sun said China’s fast-growing 4G telecom networks and the Made in China 2025 strategy will lead to further improvements in high-end products, productivity and resource efficiency this year.
Neither you nor I know the particulars of the Dongfang gas turbine being reported. Just because some industrial gas turbines can be converted to marine gas turbines that doesn’t mean all industrial gas turbines can be converted. I am not saying China cannot convert industrial gas turbines into a marine gas turbines. I am saying the *specific* turbine we are talking about may not be the type that would make sense for such a conversion. Just like how not every civilian turbofan is appropriate for conversion to military use or vice versa.