Allure of the Seas Funnel?

[Captain Rhone]

I was curious as to what the addition is to one of the Allure's funnels since she came out of drydock?? Rather odd looking. See below:

 

http://www.shipspotting.com/gallery/photo.php?lid=2254644#

 

http://www.shipspotting.com/gallery/photo.php?lid=2254645#

 

http://www.shipspotting.com/gallery/photo.php?lid=2254642#

[leaveitallbehind]

Interesting. Curious about this as well!

[A&L_Ont]

Interesting. Curious about this as well!

 

I noticed this May a lot more carbon ash up on deck 15 aft of the windjammer than previous sailings. I wonder if this new funnel might have something to do with it.

[uksimonusa]

Probably a new scrubber system was installed in dry dock

[Ourusualbeach]

Probably a new scrubber system was installed in dry dock

 

Correct. It was the new scrubber system.

[leaveitallbehind]

Correct. It was the new scrubber system.

 

Thanks Ken. Good info as always!

[Ourusualbeach]

Thanks Ken. Good info as always!

 

Good to see you back posting.:)

[DarthGrady]

Asymmetrical funnels? A bit odd. Not that the Oasis Class ships are all that handsome to begin with. They've always looked portly to me compared to the Radiance and Voyager/Freedom class ships. At least they've got Viking Crown Lounges. :D

 

Just out of curiosity, what's it scrubbing?

[leaveitallbehind]

Good to see you back posting.:)

 

Thanks! Took a little break, did some cruising, but decided to get back and join the the good people on CC! Hope you've been well....

Edited June 22, 2015 by leaveitallbehind

[Clarea]

Asymmetrical funnels? A bit odd. Not that the Oasis Class ships are all that handsome to begin with. They've always looked portly to me compared to the Radiance and Voyager/Freedom class ships. At least they've got Viking Crown Lounges. :D

 

Just out of curiosity, what's it scrubbing?

Scrubbing the exhaust from the diesel engines. There are some more restrictive emission controls coming into effect.

[Ourusualbeach]

Asymmetrical funnels? A bit odd. Not that the Oasis Class ships are all that handsome to begin with. They've always looked portly to me compared to the Radiance and Voyager/Freedom class ships. At least they've got Viking Crown Lounges. :D

 

Just out of curiosity, what's it scrubbing?

 

http://www.royalcaribbeanpresscenter.com/download-press-release/1125/

[chengkp75]

This is interesting, since that implies that only one of her six engines has the scrubber. That means that 5 of the engines must burn low sulfur diesel fuel, while that one engine can burn residual fuel. They must be moving slowly into scrubbers, which I find strange, since they have had Liberty operating them for a few years. When NCL refitted POA, they installed 4 scrubbers out of six engines.

[BillB48]

I found this reference to the added stack, although I have no idea as to how many engines are serviced by a scrubbing tower...

 

"The size, weight and location of the scrubber towers was a challenge—for the Oasis class, for example, a stack was added to make room for the tower. And scrubbing exhaust takes more water than all the water needs of the rest of the ship."

 

The above came from this article...

http://www.seatrade-cruise.com/news/news-headlines/scrubbers-a-good-story-as-cruise-response-to-cutting-harmful-exhaust.html

[Clarea]

...And scrubbing exhaust takes more water than all the water needs of the rest of the ship ...

This is interesting. I wonder if this "scrubbing" water has to be fresh water?

[alfaeric]

This is interesting, since that implies that only one of her six engines has the scrubber. That means that 5 of the engines must burn low sulfur diesel fuel, while that one engine can burn residual fuel. They must be moving slowly into scrubbers, which I find strange, since they have had Liberty operating them for a few years. When NCL refitted POA, they installed 4 scrubbers out of six engines.

 

It may be more experiments- I do know that the use of scrubbers means that RCI does not need to use low sulfur fuel- they made a deal with the EPA doing that.

 

Not knowing the specifics of the deal, I would think that the scrubbers would only be used in the ECA zones. Which may also mean that on a ship like the Oasis, scrubbers are only on engines needed to run inside that zone.

 

All of this is pretty interesting to me- as we had a nice tour of the bridge with Captain Zini when we mentioned our connection to the new rules- and he showed us that the Allure was fitted so that it can run two fuels quite easily. This suggests that they changed tactics.

[DarthGrady]

Scrubbing the exhaust from the diesel engines. There are some more restrictive emission controls coming into effect.

Gotcha, thanks.

[chengkp75]

[/i]This is interesting. I wonder if this "scrubbing" water has to be fresh water?

 

It may be more experiments- I do know that the use of scrubbers means that RCI does not need to use low sulfur fuel- they made a deal with the EPA doing that.

 

Not knowing the specifics of the deal, I would think that the scrubbers would only be used in the ECA zones. Which may also mean that on a ship like the Oasis, scrubbers are only on engines needed to run inside that zone.

 

All of this is pretty interesting to me- as we had a nice tour of the bridge with Captain Zini when we mentioned our connection to the new rules- and he showed us that the Allure was fitted so that it can run two fuels quite easily. This suggests that they changed tactics.

 

Okay, whether anyone wants it or not, here is scrubber 101.

 

There are two basic types of shipboard scrubbers, open and closed. Both use water and chemicals to remove the pollutants from the stack gas, but they differ in how the handle the removed stuff.

 

Open systems take sea water in, mix it with the neutralizing chemicals, and spray it into the scrubber. The water is then filtered and sent back overboard. This, of course, tends to take the SOX and NOX, as well as heavy metals out of the air, and puts it in the water instead. Because of this, open type scrubbers can only be used outside of ports. And ocean environmentalists still have a lot of heartache about allowing open systems to operate.

 

Closed systems take water, either salt or fresh, add the chemicals and spray it into the scrubber just like the open system. However, this water is then centrifuged to remove 90% of the pollutants, and reused in the scrubber. This has the advantage that the pollutants are not put in the water, and closed systems can be used while in port. The down side is that the pollutants are collected in the engine room waste oil tanks, and must be disposed of to shore facilities set up to incinerate this product at the proper temperature to create non-polluting gases.

 

Shore side power plants use the closed scrubber systems, but tend to allow the pollutants to build up in coolant ponds until they get real nasty, and then will pump them to disposal services.

 

Diesel engines have been capable of burning either residual fuel or diesel fuel for decades, and ships calling in California have been required to switch back and forth when entering/leaving the 40 mile ECA limit. Therefore, ships have had fuel systems to handle both fuels for all this time. This is nothing new. As you say, the ship with only one scrubber will be able to only run that one engine on residual fuel (that's going to be the "in port" engine), while the others required for propulsion will be running on diesel while within 200 miles of US shores. Once outside the 200 mile ECA, they can switch the engines back to residual fuel.

 

This is what the POA has done, 4 scrubbers allows 4 engines to remain on residual fuel all the time, but 2 engines have to burn diesel fuel all the time, since the ship never leaves the ECA.

 

I think that in the case of the Allure/Oasis, that the design of the "funnel area" is what is causing the slow progression to scrubbers. The actual scrubber tower, in many designs, is capable of being installed in the exact same space as the "silencer" (muffler) in the engine's exhaust. The pumping and centrifuging skids will take up some more room, but not as much as the scrubber tower itself, and doesn't have to be in the funnel. I'm not familiar with the brand RCI is using (I'll probably look it up this week), but their towers may be larger, or the exhausts were so closely clumped in the "twin funnel" design, that there wasn't room to shoehorn a scrubber in there.

[Clarea]

Okay, whether anyone wants it or not, here is scrubber 101....

Thanks, I appreciate you taking the time to explain this.

[leaveitallbehind]

Thanks, I appreciate you taking the time to explain this.

 

Agree - chengkp75 is always a wealth of accurate information!

Edited June 22, 2015 by leaveitallbehind

[DarthGrady]

Okay, whether anyone wants it or not, here is scrubber 101.

..............

 

Very interesting, thanks for explaining that.

[loubetti]

Okay, whether anyone wants it or not, here is scrubber 101.

 

My good man, you never fail to impress. :)

 

Now, if Elon Musk could just build Tesla batteries big enough! :D

 

Hmmm... batteries get low, Diesel engines kick in to recharge them.

 

I can see it now: "Prius of the Seas", or "Tesla of the Seas"

[chengkp75]

Here's an update from my viewing of the PureSOX website.

 

The Alfa Laval PureSOX scrubber is not and inline scrubber, so it does take up considerably more space. The upside is that it can be designed to take multiple engine inputs and use one scrubber tower.

 

Currently, Freedom, Liberty, and Independence will receive a single scrubber with multiple engines connected.

 

Adventure will get a single engine connected to a newer, trial version of an in-line scrubber.

 

I haven't found out definitely, but I believe that Allure/Oasis class are getting Wartsila scrubbers, as definitely are the Quantum class. These are also not in-line scrubbers, and can be configured for multiple engine inlets, so the single scrubber exhaust on the Allure may well have up to four inlets, some combination of engines and boilers.

 

It appears that RCI is testing various manufacturer's models to see which is better, or maybe it is just a matter of delivery time, as these tend to be "built to order".

Edited June 23, 2015 by chengkp75

[Clarea]

Here's an update from my viewing of the PureSOX website.

 

The Alfa Laval PureSOX scrubber is not and inline scrubber, so it does take up considerably more space. The upside is that it can be designed to take multiple engine inputs and use one scrubber tower.

 

Currently, Freedom, Liberty, and Independence will receive a single scrubber with multiple engines connected.

 

Adventure will get a single engine connected to a newer, trial version of an in-line scrubber.

 

I haven't found out definitely, but I believe that Allure/Oasis class are getting Wartsila scrubbers, as definitely are the Quantum class. These are also not in-line scrubbers, and can be configured for multiple engine inlets, so the single scrubber exhaust on the Allure may well have up to four inlets, some combination of engines and boilers.

 

It appears that RCI is testing various manufacturer's models to see which is better, or maybe it is just a matter of delivery time, as these tend to be "built to order".

Probably a dumb question, but if 4 engines are connected to one scrubber, is there any exhaust coming out of the original stacks for those 4 engines, or is all that exhaust diverted to the scrubber exhaust?

[chengkp75]

Probably a dumb question, but if 4 engines are connected to one scrubber, is there any exhaust coming out of the original stacks for those 4 engines, or is all that exhaust diverted to the scrubber exhaust?

 

All the exhaust would come from the one scrubber exhaust. For a four inlet, 15MW unit (average of Allure's 3 x 13Mw and 3 x 18Mw engines), the inlet exhaust pipe is about 1 meter in diameter. The scrubber tower is over 3.5 meters in diameter, and the common outlet is about 1.5 meters in diameter. There are 3-way valves in the engine exhaust that will either divert the exhaust gas to the scrubber, or send it up the original uptake when the scrubber is not required.

 

Because the design of scrubbers requires a low gas velocity in order to get the water droplets to fall out, when a multi-inlet unit is installed, there will be a variable frequency fan installed after the scrubber to facilitate getting the exhaust gas to move up and out of the scrubber.

 

By the way, all of these RCI scrubbers are "hybrid" scrubbers, which means they can be operated as either open loop or closed loop as required.

Edited June 23, 2015 by chengkp75

[Clarea]

All the exhaust would come from the one scrubber exhaust. For a four inlet, 15MW unit (average of Allure's 3 x 13Mw and 3 x 18Mw engines), the inlet exhaust pipe is about 1 meter in diameter. The scrubber tower is over 3.5 meters in diameter, and the common outlet is about 1.5 meters in diameter. There are 3-way valves in the engine exhaust that will either divert the exhaust gas to the scrubber, or send it up the original uptake when the scrubber is not required.

 

Because the design of scrubbers requires a low gas velocity in order to get the water droplets to fall out, when a multi-inlet unit is installed, there will be a variable frequency fan installed after the scrubber to facilitate getting the exhaust gas to move up and out of the scrubber.

 

By the way, all of these RCI scrubbers are "hybrid" scrubbers, which means they can be operated as either open loop or closed loop as required.

Really interesting stuff, thanks.