What Lubricating oil does ships uses

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Bhargav

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what brand or grade of Lubricating oil does Cargo ships or other ships use...??
how much TBN does it has what are they priced at per liter ??.....and other stuffs about lube oil used in ships.....

any link would be helpful too
 
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There is a "marine" series of oil. Contains additives to negate water and corrosion. As with anything related to boats (boat= break out another thousand $), they are expensive. I paid $8.95 a quart. Most boats go by a hour meter on the engine for maintenance. Three years on my boat and I only have 51 hours on it, I anchor a lot of the time. I have no idea on the TBN.

Here is a link for Walmart:

http://www.walmart.com/ip/16401577?wmlsp...990&veh=sem


Here is some 4 cycle oil:

http://www.walmart.com/ip/Mercury-Quicksilver-Performance-4-Stroke-Outboard-Oil/17165287
 
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Ships run high sulfur bunker oil along with lower but still high sulfur distillate closer to land. Usually a high TBN oil with special design for the large, low speed diesels are used.
 
Originally Posted By: JHZR2
Ships run high sulfur bunker oil along with lower but still high sulfur distillate closer to land. Usually a high TBN oil with special design for the large, low speed diesels are used.



And "ships" covers a lot of ground. Cargo ships currently tend to use the big, ~100 RPM non-geared direct drive diesels (Sulzer, for example). But more and more new ship builds are using diesel-electric where instead of one big 3-story tall diesel attached directly to the propeller shaft, they have a bank of smaller (though still large) diesels running generators which then drive electric motors for the props and ship's electricity. And in those cases, frequently the props are in steerable "azipods" that allow the ship to be thrusted in any direction for station keeping (dynamic positioning) or docking. The diesel-electric setups use engines much like locomotive diesels and often built by the same companies that build locomotive diesels- EMD and GE in the US, companies like MTU and MAN in Europe. Obviously the lubricating oil requirements would be pretty different for a 120 RPM 18,000 horsepower Sulzer than for a bank of three 900 RPM 6000 horsepower GE or EMD engines.
 
Very informative thanks guys keep it coming....
What would be the average price per liter....??

Here at shipbreaking yard we get plenty of Black used oil and Lubricating oil unused....Say 100 to 400 ton per ship... what i see is only oil and color of it but not the brand they use... so any other ways to identify Lube oil in person??
 
You could send a sample off to get analyzed,the TBN and grade would be useful to know but the level of contamination would determine resale.

Recycle,reformulate, resell?
Price per liter..maybe .25 to .50 That.s a wild guess.$10 to $15 per barrel.
 
The crosshead diesel engines, up to 107,000 hp--the ones with the piston rod bolted hard to the piston, then the "wrist pin" like crosshead in the crank case and a connecting rod from there to the crankshaft use two engine oils. The 30 wt. crankcase oil is good for the life of the engine. It has a low TBN because it does not get exposure to the blowby products of combustion--it is more like a "machinery oil" than like an "engine oil". There is a 50 wt or 60 wt cylinder oil that is pumped into ports in the cylinder to lubricate the liner, piston rings, and piston skirt--the larger engines will consume a ton a day. It will be TBN 70 or so for the very high sulfur bunker fuel oil. A lower TBN oil must be used when low sulfur fuel is used.

Trunk piston engines, the medium speed engines used for generators or for the diesel electric propulsion systems up to 23,000 hp, will use a 40 wt. oil of 30 to 50 TBN. These also burn the heavy fuel oil.

The prices of these oils are often confidential between the suppliers and the ship owners. Suppliers want a long term contract for the entire fleet. And, they are usually bought in bulk by the ton and delivered by tanker truck or barge. The ExxonMobil link above is very informative.
 
Having developed marine engine oils myself, I can get this one!

Ken2 pretty much nailed it. 2-stroke cylinder oils are high TBN (typically 70 but can be from 50 to 130) high viscosity (usually SAE 50) mineral oils. They are pretty simple oils, with no VI improver, little or no anti-wear but lots and lots of overbased detergents. They primarily prevent corrosive and mechanical wear and are a total-loss lubricant, being injected onto the cylinder liner and then burnt and lost.

2-stroke crankcase oils (system oils) are around 5 TBN, SAE 30 and look after the bearings and various other systems, such as any hydraulics (for example hydraulic exhaust valve lifters). They are usually SAE 30 and are mineral. They use a little detergent and some antiwear and critically they need to be separable from water as they are recirculating oils and there is usually a centrifugal separator in the system to remove deposits and water. They are not often fully changed, but are often topped up or partially changed. They suffer from contamination by the cylinder oil (above) through the piston rod stuffing box which causes their TBN to rise and ruins their demulsability.

Trunk piston engines are 4-stroke engines much like overgrown heavy duty diesels and use a single oil throughout the engine. These are generally mineral monogrades of SAE 30 or 40 with a TBN in the 12 to 50 range (depending on application and fuel type). Formulations are a bit more like road engines but there's no VI improver and detergents have to be able to deal with high sulfur fuel with high asphaltene content.

The biggest ships (oil tankers, very large container ships etc) use the 2-stroke crosshead engines, with the 4-strokes used in smaller cargo ships and in passenger ships, either as prime movers or as diesel-electrics.

If you are at all into engines and get a chance to visit the engine room of a really big ship, take it! I never tired of seeing those engines up close.
 
Originally Posted By: 440Magnum
Originally Posted By: JHZR2
Ships run high sulfur bunker oil along with lower but still high sulfur distillate closer to land. Usually a high TBN oil with special design for the large, low speed diesels are used.



And "ships" covers a lot of ground. Cargo ships currently tend to use the big, ~100 RPM non-geared direct drive diesels (Sulzer, for example). But more and more new ship builds are using diesel-electric where instead of one big 3-story tall diesel attached directly to the propeller shaft, they have a bank of smaller (though still large) diesels running generators which then drive electric motors for the props and ship's electricity. And in those cases, frequently the props are in steerable "azipods" that allow the ship to be thrusted in any direction for station keeping (dynamic positioning) or docking. The diesel-electric setups use engines much like locomotive diesels and often built by the same companies that build locomotive diesels- EMD and GE in the US, companies like MTU and MAN in Europe. Obviously the lubricating oil requirements would be pretty different for a 120 RPM 18,000 horsepower Sulzer than for a bank of three 900 RPM 6000 horsepower GE or EMD engines.

There's a guy in Boston who buys used EMD's and builds his own tugboats.
 
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Originally Posted By: weasley
Having developed marine engine oils myself, I can get this one!

Ken2 pretty much nailed it. 2-stroke cylinder oils are high TBN (typically 70 but can be from 50 to 130) high viscosity (usually SAE 50) mineral oils. They are pretty simple oils, with no VI improver, little or no anti-wear but lots and lots of overbased detergents. They primarily prevent corrosive and mechanical wear and are a total-loss lubricant, being injected onto the cylinder liner and then burnt and lost.

2-stroke crankcase oils (system oils) are around 5 TBN, SAE 30 and look after the bearings and various other systems, such as any hydraulics (for example hydraulic exhaust valve lifters). They are usually SAE 30 and are mineral. They use a little detergent and some antiwear and critically they need to be separable from water as they are recirculating oils and there is usually a centrifugal separator in the system to remove deposits and water. They are not often fully changed, but are often topped up or partially changed. They suffer from contamination by the cylinder oil (above) through the piston rod stuffing box which causes their TBN to rise and ruins their demulsability.

Trunk piston engines are 4-stroke engines much like overgrown heavy duty diesels and use a single oil throughout the engine. These are generally mineral monogrades of SAE 30 or 40 with a TBN in the 12 to 50 range (depending on application and fuel type). Formulations are a bit more like road engines but there's no VI improver and detergents have to be able to deal with high sulfur fuel with high asphaltene content.

The biggest ships (oil tankers, very large container ships etc) use the 2-stroke crosshead engines, with the 4-strokes used in smaller cargo ships and in passenger ships, either as prime movers or as diesel-electrics.

If you are at all into engines and get a chance to visit the engine room of a really big ship, take it! I never tired of seeing those engines up close.


This is super cool information! Very interesting stuff. Thank you very much for the detailed post! I also love the huge diesels and hope to get in an engine room some day. Anyone interested, marinediesels.co.uk is a site about the giant marine diesels that geeks like me can spend a lot of time reading.

Cheers weasley!

JAR
 
That marine diesels site has an interesting graphic of a 2 stroke crosshead engine. It appears to have some sort of a timing belt from the crankshaft to the exhaust cam, with three idlers, and I haven't seen anything like that on a modern engine (and I don't know about old engines). There is a gear on the crankshaft that drives the camshaft for the exhaust valves. They operate hydraulically. Riding on the cam is a hydraulic pump. Atop the exhaust valve is a hydraulic actuating cylinder. The cam rotates, the pump plunger rides up the lobe, the oil flows to the actuator at the valve, pushes the valve down (open), then the cam rotates off the high point of the lobe, the hydraulic oil bleeds off, and a compressed air cylinder serves as an air spring to close the exhaust valve.

Also operating off the camshaft are the cams that operate the fuel injection pumps.

The graphic fails to show how the crosshead has slipper bearings that work against structure in the crankcase to transfer the force from the angularity of the crank to the engine frame. The angularity tries to push this "wrist pin" sideways and the slipper bearings (straight up & down) hold everything vertical.

The bigger diagram of the Sulzer RTA96C (96 cm. bore) is a very good diagram. It even shows the hinged oil tube that goes to the crosshead. Oil goes up the bored piston rod into cooling passages inside the piston. Different models of this engine had water cooled pistons with telescoping pipes for the cooling water supply and return. The stuffing box is shown (often called the piston rod seal) that sealed the combustion space from the crankcase. Extremely little blowby got past the seal and into the crankcase. The tie rods are big threaded steel rods (several inches in diameter) that run the full height of the engine. The nuts on the tops of these tie rods are too heavy for one man to lift. The tie rods transfer the upward force of the combustion gas on the top of the engine back down to the engine foundation--they tie the engine together. Not shown in this view is the thrust bearing. Consider that the turning propeller pushes--what? The prop pushes against the taper on the propeller shaft. The propeller shaft transfers all the thrust from the prop to the thrust bearing. This is in the engine foundation. The engine foundation is bolted to the structure of the hull, and this is what actually pushes the ship through the water.
 
I like this game!

The crosshead engines are the most thermally efficient engines in the world, getting over 50% efficiency when power take-in and other waste energy recovery systems are employed. This from an engine running on road tar.

They also run backwards to enable reverse thrust, since they are directly connected to the propeller shaft there's no gearing. It requires an adjustment of the cam timing and then BOOM, you have full engine power in reverse.

They consume something in the region of 180 g/kW.hr of fuel. For a modest 60,000 kW engine that's nearly 11 tons of fuel an hour at full load.
 
Originally Posted By: weasley


If you are at all into engines and get a chance to visit the engine room of a really big ship, take it! I never tired of seeing those engines up close.


Did that breath taking... and loved it
 
Don't mean to divert this thread off topic but since we're on the topic of big diesels wanted to share some pictures I took when I was on a tour of the local university's power plants. Sorry not ship related but perhaps this will inspire someone to post some pics of big ship diesels.

Think this was a Wartsila unit biggest they had on campus running at about 100rpm. Not running when I was there, mainly used as a backup unit to turn that 8ft generator. Unfortunately, the tour guide didn't know many details about the engines themselves.


Here's the entire engine itself sitting behind the generator. Looked about 12 to 14ft high.


Got a chance to climb the yellow ladder flanking the unit. If I remember correctly it was 20 cylinders. Tour guide said it is normally started with diesel and then switched to natural gas.


The second unit was apart for repairs, check out the size of this head. I could easily fit my hand and arm through those valve springs.


As the tour guide was speaking I realized that the four foot high wooden box I was leaning on actually housed a cylinder from the unit under repair.


I asked about the lube they used for the engines, guide didn't know any specifics other than there were two separate lubes used, one for the crankcase and another that was fed to the cylinders with the natural gas. In the basement, below the engine, was the crankcase lubrication system. Think I spotted a 750 or so gallon tank of "engine oil".


Walked by a huge holding tank for dirty lube.


And your run of the mill 5ft oil filter... Wonder what the media looks like.


There were 5 other smaller Wartsila units, all standing by as backup gens. This "small" 18 cylinder unit was about the size of my Corolla.


Medium sized Wartsila, actually three sitting side by side. Guide told me that they are capable of burning up to 80 gallons of diesel an hour.


The four smallest diesels where Caterpillar units, mainly used as backup gens for the power plant itself. The guide explained that they reminded him of a B-17 starting up. Presumably there is a rather impressive smoke show until the exhaust manifold heats up and its full expansion allows for a proper seal.


This CAT actually had a few drums of Rotella T 15w40 sitting around next to it, but the guide was unsure if that oil was used for those units or not.


Was very impressive to see such big engines up close, can only imagine the size of the units some of the large container and tanker ships use.
 
Awesome, gomes, thank you! On the filter question - I think the huge marine diesels use centrifugal filters for the oil as well as the fuel. The one you posted a photo of seems like it would house a filter element rather than spinning the heck out of the oil. Really appreciate the awesome photos!
 
Originally Posted By: gomes512
Don't mean to divert this thread off topic but since we're on the topic of big diesels wanted to share some pictures I took when I was on a tour of the local university's power plants. Sorry not ship related but perhaps this will inspire someone to post some pics of big ship diesels.

Think this was a Wartsila unit biggest they had on campus running at about 100rpm. Not running when I was there, mainly used as a backup unit to turn that 8ft generator. Unfortunately, the tour guide didn't know many details about the engines themselves.


Here's the entire engine itself sitting behind the generator. Looked about 12 to 14ft high.


Got a chance to climb the yellow ladder flanking the unit. If I remember correctly it was 20 cylinders. Tour guide said it is normally started with diesel and then switched to natural gas.


The second unit was apart for repairs, check out the size of this head. I could easily fit my hand and arm through those valve springs.


As the tour guide was speaking I realized that the four foot high wooden box I was leaning on actually housed a cylinder from the unit under repair.


I asked about the lube they used for the engines, guide didn't know any specifics other than there were two separate lubes used, one for the crankcase and another that was fed to the cylinders with the natural gas. In the basement, below the engine, was the crankcase lubrication system. Think I spotted a 750 or so gallon tank of "engine oil".


Walked by a huge holding tank for dirty lube.


And your run of the mill 5ft oil filter... Wonder what the media looks like.


There were 5 other smaller Wartsila units, all standing by as backup gens. This "small" 18 cylinder unit was about the size of my Corolla.


Medium sized Wartsila, actually three sitting side by side. Guide told me that they are capable of burning up to 80 gallons of diesel an hour.


The four smallest diesels where Caterpillar units, mainly used as backup gens for the power plant itself. The guide explained that they reminded him of a B-17 starting up. Presumably there is a rather impressive smoke show until the exhaust manifold heats up and its full expansion allows for a proper seal.


This CAT actually had a few drums of Rotella T 15w40 sitting around next to it, but the guide was unsure if that oil was used for those units or not.


Was very impressive to see such big engines up close, can only imagine the size of the units some of the large container and tanker ships use.


Playing around in the medical district I see ;-)

Wartsilla engine there I believe is 5,000kW; it would be sucking down 350 gallons per hour at full name plate kVA load. I think the Wartsilla's backup the turbines, that are prime power.

The smaller units, CAT, Cummins, 2 detroits are all connected to medium voltage switchgear, backs up the critical loads.
 
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