Flow Study Provides Evidence for Shipping Company

Hot sticky boiler rooms are not the sort of places that most people want to spend much time in. However, for one lucky engineer, this was to be his place of work for several days.

Hot sticky boiler rooms are not the sort of places that most people want to spend much time in. However, for one lucky RS Hydro engineer, this was to be his place of work for several days. RS Hydro was employed as an independent witness for both an international law firm and a shipping company to establish the fuel consumption of a 400ft bulk carrier tanker. The owners of the ship, based in Odessa (Ukraine) have accused the operators of embezzling fuel from the ship.

RS Hydro is respected internationally as experts in clamp on flow measurement and was contacted to establish the exact fuel consumption of the ship in various sailing conditions.To do this, trial runs were made in the Baltic Sea in deep water as fuel consumption rates are far higher in shallow waters. The following tests were carried out on the milos vessel to verify the fuel oil consumption totals for metering and accuracy purposes.

The tests carried out were in conjunction with the vessel travelling in a straight line at a certain depth over a set period off time also taken into account was ballast tide wind age and engine consumptions power. Tests involved using three PT878 clamp on flow meters measuring fuel flows in 1-3” pipework. Each test was duplicated on the return journey to provide two sets off data for reporting purposes. The data was subsequently reported and used as evidential proof.

7th Oct 2012