A turbocharger is a vital part of a ship’s propulsion system, achieving up to 75% more power from the same engine. When a turbo fails, creating loss of engine power and excessive fuel usage, it can be catastrophic and almost impossible to operate a vessel without one. Therefore repair must be undertaken immediately when failure has occurred.

The consequence of turbo failure can result in lost voyages and cargo delivery times. The over all cost in commercial terms to the operator is therefore many times more than the cost of instigating Condition Monitoring.

The Mimic Benefit

The Mimic suite of online and remote analysis products have been developed to provide information to decision making owners and engineers. When used on a marine turbo charger the Mimic TC Online System utilises modern technology, engineering common sense and practical experience to warn operators that a fault condition exists.

Our engineers recognise that turbo charger faults can be split, initially into two types; sudden (catastrophic) and a (relatively) slower degradation.

Sudden failures are often caused by debris and other foreign objects passing through either the turbine or the compressor or by a rapid loss of lubricating oil.

Degradation failures can be caused by a range of faults, such as, interrupted air flow, excessive air/operating temperatures, poor lubricating oil quality etc.

With this in mind the Mimic TC Online system is able to capture data and respond in real time. For those owners concerned about sudden and catastrophic failures Mimic can be linked to the vessels alarm and monitoring system to either provide a red warning light and klaxon or to initiate an engine shut down signal.

In response to the slower, degradation, failures Mimic can collect a range of data and present it in an easily understood manner that assists engineers to make short and long term decisions regarding the health and maintenance requirement for the turbo charger.

Mimic can collect:

• Vibration signature data from one to four accelerometers.
• TC speed
• Lubricating Oil analysis details
• Air temperatures (In and Out)
• Air Flow (pressures/depression etc)
• Gas temperatures (In and out)
• Lubricating oil parameters (pressure/temperature)
• Running hours

Mimic will utilise existing engine control and monitoring systems, linking in to extract the data where possible/previously installed. Mimic can also present other parameters not previously used for TC fault analysis, such as engine load, fuel flow, ambient air temperature, sea water temperature, cooling system temperatures and engine speed; all of which provide a more accurate picture to the decision makers.

Vibration data analysis will be linked to TC speed in order to ensure that spurious alarms are eliminated and that vibration limits are responsive to the prevailing operating condition. Vibration analysis techniques are incorporated to monitor rotational balance and overall condition whilst employing enveloped signal processing to recognise the very early indications of bearing faults.