Samenvatting

On board the vessels of Holland America Line a lot of attention is drawn to prevent the loss of
energy. On board energy is produced in several ways by fuel. Therefor fuel is the biggest expense of a
cruise ship. On board steam is used for heating purposes. The type of steam used for these heating
purposes is saturated steam. To create the saturated steam a steam system is used that consumes
fuel. This steam system can have energy losses, noticeable and unnoticeable. If the steam system has
steam leaks this will result in a bigger expense on fuel.
Steam traps are an important part of the steam system. The function of a steam trap is to separate
the condensate from the steam. Steam traps can leak steam unnoticed, if a steam trap leaks the
boiler will have to produce more steam, this will result in higher fuel costs.
The goal of this research was to determine the condition of the steam traps by applying condition
based maintenance on steam traps. The condition based monitoring methods used in this research
were thermal imaging and ultrasound. The thermal image camera used was a FLIR E4, the ultrasound
measuring tool was an Ultraprobe 15000.
Each steam trap was judged on the condensate outlet temperature, the working principle of the trap
itself, and the decibel value of the ultrasound. If the temperature of the condensate was above 100
degrees Celsius this indicated steam. If the working principle of the trap was too fast, or the decibel
value was above 40 this also indicated steam leakage though the trap.
An excel sheet which includes the 76 thermal measurements and the ultrasound measurements was
created. Conclusions of the state of the steam trap according to the thermal image and ultrasound
were made. A main conclusion was drawn by combining these to two conclusions.
Once the condition of the steam traps were determined the average steam loss was determined by
using steam loss tables of Spirax Sarco and UE systems. The total amount of steam lost due to the
leaking steam traps was 557,5 kg/hour according to Spirax Sarco, according to UE systems the
amount of steam lost due to leaking traps was 1305 kg/hour. These steam losses are subjective, as
the load in the steam system is not consistent.
The price of on ton steam was calculated. The price of one ton steam generated by the aft boiler on
the MV Zuiderdam was 14,11 euro when running on MDO, running on HFO the price of one ton
steam was determined on 9,24 euro.
The yearly expenses caused by leaking steam traps were achieved by assuming that the MV
Zuiderdam has 250 port days in 2016, and the load configuration stays consistent during this period.
The total yearly expenses caused by leaking steam traps according to Spirax Sarco are 19662 euro’s
when running on MDO, and 12882 euro’s when running on HFO. This resulted in an efficiency loss in
the steam system of 11,9% on MDO and 12,2% on HFO.
According to UE systems the extra expenses caused by leaking steam traps were 47082 euro’s while
running on MDO, and 30847 euro’s while running on HFO. This resulted in an efficiency loss in the
steam system of 28,5% on MDO, and 29,1% on HFO.
It must be stated that the fuel prices are low at this moment. In 2013 the fuel prices were almost
four times as high, this will make the expenses caused by leaking steam traps four times as high.