Smart fuel hoses set to enhance safety at sea
“A fire in the engine room is any seafarer’s
worst nightmare,” says Tom Backlund, Wärtsilä’s General Manager Large Bore Engines.
This is especially true when it comes to fuel leakages in vessel engine rooms. This is why the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) regulation, enforced by the International Maritime Organisation (IMO), stipulates a number of minimum safety standards for operations throughout the vessel, including the engine room, with a strict limit for splash guards’ surface temperatures that could ignite liquid and cause fires.
Wärtsilä continuously delivers improvements to its engines and has introduced a variety of new solutions to comply with the hot surface requirements. It has also developed barriers that prevent any fuel leakages from spreading to hot surfaces. Launched in January 2019, the smart fuel hose is Wärtsilä’s latest fire safety enhancement.
What makes the smart fuel hose so smart? The Wärtsilä Smart fuel hose is a multi-layered hose based on state-of-the-art rubber material, strengthened by embedded steel wires, with a minimum burst pressure that is five times higher than the nominal fuel pressure of a low-pressure fuel pipe. What makes the new fuel hose so smart is the cutting-edge, leakage detection system fitted in the space between the two hoses. This facilitates the monitoring of the condition of the hose, as well as maintenance management.
“This safety feature makes it possible to identify leaks before they become a problem,” says Backlund. “If the fuel hose breaks, there is another hose on top of it to prevent the fuel from leaking out or spraying, and, in the meantime, an alarm will go off to alert operators to the problem and allow them to fix it.”
What is more, Backlund explains that the smart fuel hose requires no complex installation or significant investments.
“It’s effectively a ‘plug-and-play’ solution that can be installed where the old fuel hose used to be, without any major modifications,”
48 | The Report • September 2019 • Issue 89
he continues. “Furthermore, this fuel hose delivers a service lifetime that is almost twice as long as the previous equipment – and that’s before you even start taking the considerable safety benefits into account. It really is a no-brainer.”
Thomas Dirix is a Principal Engineer with DNV GL, one of the world’s largest maritime classification societies and one of the driving forces behind the SOLAS initiative. He says Wärtsilä has used its unique position as the interface between engine maker and shipyard supply, to address an issue that is well known in the industry but has often been overlooked.
“Wärtsilä has listened to the industry and created a standard solution, which both contains and detects fuel leakages,” he says.
“As a company, Wärtsilä has consistently demonstrated its willingness to come up with solutions that address what the industry needs. Its new smart fuel hose is one such example, along with its work on other components, either through new designs or retrofit solutions,” continues Dirix, adding that he believes the maritime industry still needs to take further steps to improve safety at sea.
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