Design, Modelling and Application of Microcontroller (MCU) on Marine Heat Exchanger

Abstract

One of the most vital system onboard is the sea water cooling system. Main engines as example are designed to operate continuously on long hours which contribute to energy loss in form of heat. This heat energy loss is to be reduce or carried away by a cooling media otherwise the main engine will become malfunction or breakdown. Two major well known cooling system practically used onboard are fresh water system and sea water cooling system [1]. For a Dredger ship, the most common problem is the high temperature for the main engine HT circuit. During dredging operation, HT temperature is rising and although the 3-way valve actuator operate to fully open so that HT fresh water will not bypass meaning to enter the heat exchanger (cooling by sea water), HT temperature is still maintained and not reduce which trigger the HT high temperature alarm. This effect is common due to the nature of dredging operation itself near port or shallow waters. In shallow waters, sea water as the cooling media for HT heat exchanger comes with natural debris such as sand, mud, mussels, leaves and seaweed. Furthermore, in certain port, human debris also contribute such as garbage and plastic bags. These debris will accumulate which result in reduce of sea water flow and lower the efficiency of heat exchanger. The only thing engine crew can do to recover is to manually backflush/backwash HT heat exchanger. Hence the main objective of this project is to improve the current system by an applicable design using microcontrollers unit (MCU) based system.