The Study of Synthetic Material Bush (Railko Bush) Application on Large Container Vessel

대형 컨테이너 선박의 합성수지계열 RAILKO BUSH 적용 연구

Recently, the synthetic material stern tube bush has been applied by ship owner's requirement because the synthetic material has a merit. That is to say, when stern tube seal is damaged and sea water comes into stern tube, it can work without problem because of water lubricating property. However, the material also has a demerit of temperature rise problem when some factors meets on synthetic material, for example, not sufficient lubrication oil supply and not proper shaft alignment and so on. As known in the world, the RAILKO bush is rampant for synthetic material by some ship owner because of the above mentioned reason. However, the bush has several accidents on large container vessel. Unfortunately or fortunately our yard has a chance to apply the RAILKO bush owing to requirement of specific ship owner. Therefore, it is much more required to approach the accurate shaft alignment analysis. In line with this reason, we had a shaft alignment calculation considering hull deformation and hull flexibility (hull stiffness). Also, in the calculation, we had considered dynamic condition which is reflected he propeller thrust forces and moments and oil film stiffness on the shaft alignment calculation. According to he shaft alignment calculation, bearing slope was applied on the tern tube bush and was measured. The RAILKO bush should be applied the running in procedure according to maker's recommendation for performing the oil film on the bush surface. Finally, the vessels were delivered successfully without any problem with AILKO bush as shown on his paper.