Abstract
It is envisaged that the effect of increasingly stricter air emissions legislation implemented through IMO Annex VI and other local air quality controls, together with favorable financial conditions for the use of natural gas instead of liquid fuel oil as a bunker fuel, will see an increasing number of DF engine and single gas fuel engine applications to LNG carriers and other vessel types. As part of provision for the current international movements in the shipping industry to reduce GHG emission in air, new design concepts using natural gas as an alternative fuel source for propulsion of large commercial vessels, have been developed by shipyards and research institutes. In this study, an explosion analysis for a gas supply machinery room of LNG-fuelled container ship is presented. The gas fuel concept is employed for the high pressure ME-GI where a leakage in the natural gas double supply pipe to the engines is the subject of the present analysis. The consequences of a leak are simulated with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) tools to predict typical leak scenarios, gas cloud sizes and possible explosion pressures. In addition, capacity of the structure which is subject to explosion loads has been assessed.
