Development of partial liquefaction system for liquefied natural gas carrier application using exergy analysis

The cargo handling system, which is composed of a fuel gas supply unit and cargo tank pressure control unit, is the second largest power consumer in a Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) carrier. Because of recent enhancements in ship efficiency, the surplus boil-off gas that remains after supplying fuel gas for ship propulsion must be reliquefied or burned to regulate the cargo tank pressure. A full or partial liquefaction process can be applied to return the surplus gas to the cargo tank. The purpose of this study is to review the current partial liquefaction process for LNG carriers and develop new processes for reducing power consumption using exergy analysis. The developed partial liquefaction process was also compared with the full liquefaction process applicable to a LNG carrier with a varying boil-off gas composition and varying liquefaction amounts. An exergy analysis showed that the Joule-Thomson valve is the key component needed for improvements to the system, and that the proposed system showed an 8% enhancement relative to the current prevailing system. A comparison of the study results with a partial/full liquefaction process showed that power consumption is strongly affected by the returned liquefied amount.