The Mermaid™ pod propulsion system, jointly developed by Alstom and Rolls-Royce, has been adopted by a large number of Shipowners. Since the first Millennium Class cruise ship was fitted with the most powerful pod system currently in service, the Mermaid™ consortium has received orders for 50 Mermaids™, totalling more than 550 MW. Among these are numerous cruise ships (including the Queen Mary 2), offshore drilling rigs and, more recently, two military vessels for the French Navy. 26 Mermaids™ are currently in operation throughout the world. Rolls-Royce and Alstom’s expertise in their respective fields and the return on experience from pods in service have helped improve the system and make Mermaid™ a high performance integrated pod propulsion system.
After an overview of the various Mermaid™ components and the main advantages brought by this concept (higher efficiency, excellent manœuvrability, space saving and ease of ship construction), the author will present the main improvements which have been carried out thanks to the return on experience. As the variable speed drive system is a key component for an optimized propulsion, the main chararecteristics of the two different electric drive solutions are illustrated in the latter part of this paper: the synchroconverter ALSPA SD7000 range and the new medium voltage press-pack IGBT converter ALSPA MV7000. In comparing these architectures, specific benefits will be highlighted such as the quality of the on-board network, the reduction of noise by harmonic filtering and the reliability of the system due to a built-in redundancy.
Thanks to strong R&D resources, especially in power electronics, ALSTOM offers its customers state of the art technology converters which significantly increase drive performances and make Mermaid™ an optimum solution for safer and more economical ships.
The Mermaid™ pod propulsion
2005-01-01
8 pages
Aufsatz/Kapitel (Buch)
Elektronische Ressource
Englisch
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