safe operation and fire protection on oil tankers
Basics of Fire Prevention On board Ships
The best way to deal with fires on board ships is to prevent them rather than letting them occur. Breaking out of fire in a place where no fire exist is called “ignition”, whereas “flash” is a term used for fire eruption in a new place as a result of flames from an existing fire in a nearby place (the ignition source).
Fires on board ships can be prevented by finding and rectifying leakages of fuel oil, lubricating oil, and exhaust gases.
In a ship’s generator room, the biggest danger of fire is from a leaky high pressure fuel pipe. Oil leaking from such pipe can fall on high temperature exhaust manifold or on indicator cocks, which are sensitive points for catching fire.
In modern marine engines, there is push-type cover concealing the indicator cocks; however in old engines there is no such provision available which makes it quite difficult to provide lagging to indicator cocks.
These days fuel high pressure pipes are sheathed and the leakage finds its way to a small tank at the bottom of the engine known as fuel leak off tank. It is imperative to keep this system in good order by regularly testing the tank alarm – fuel leak off tank high level alarm.
Leakages are mainly caused because of pipes breaking due to vibrations, clamps rubbing against pipes to create holes, pipe connections behind the pressure gauges getting damaged due to ageing (we generally do not look here), leakages from fittings at boiler furnace front and incinerator front etc. These leakages are some of the most common “hot spots” for fire. Moreover, careful and periodical checks are also required on boiler smoke side and incinerator uptake.
Fires can be largely prevented by providing effective laggings to hot surfaces such as generator turbocharger bellows, main engine exhaust uptakes after the turbocharger, various steam pipes and pipes carrying hot oil. Laggings can be done by ship staff but these days specialist contractors are available to
The best way to deal with fires on board ships is to prevent them rather than letting them occur. Breaking out of fire in a place where no fire exist is called “ignition”, whereas “flash” is a term used for fire eruption in a new place as a result of flames from an existing fire in a nearby place (the ignition source).
Fires on board ships can be prevented by finding and rectifying leakages of fuel oil, lubricating oil, and exhaust gases.
In a ship’s generator room, the biggest danger of fire is from a leaky high pressure fuel pipe. Oil leaking from such pipe can fall on high temperature exhaust manifold or on indicator cocks, which are sensitive points for catching fire.
In modern marine engines, there is push-type cover concealing the indicator cocks; however in old engines there is no such provision available which makes it quite difficult to provide lagging to indicator cocks.
These days fuel high pressure pipes are sheathed and the leakage finds its way to a small tank at the bottom of the engine known as fuel leak off tank. It is imperative to keep this system in good order by regularly testing the tank alarm – fuel leak off tank high level alarm.
Leakages are mainly caused because of pipes breaking due to vibrations, clamps rubbing against pipes to create holes, pipe connections behind the pressure gauges getting damaged due to ageing (we generally do not look here), leakages from fittings at boiler furnace front and incinerator front etc. These leakages are some of the most common “hot spots” for fire. Moreover, careful and periodical checks are also required on boiler smoke side and incinerator uptake.
Fires can be largely prevented by providing effective laggings to hot surfaces such as generator turbocharger bellows, main engine exhaust uptakes after the turbocharger, various steam pipes and pipes carrying hot oil. Laggings can be done by ship staff but these days specialist contractors are available to