An Automated Energy Conservation Decision Support System for Navy Gas Turbines

Energy conservation measures currently employed by U.S. Navy surface combatants require labor-intensive, time-consuming data entry from which fuel curves are generated to drive each ship’s propulsion plant machinery alignment. From these rudimentary curves optimal transit speeds, configurations, and refueling requirements are determined for specific operational demands and mission profiles. This paper describes an automated process for optimizing shipboard fuel consumption rates by integrating advanced diagnostic and maintenance optimization techniques with the onboard data information system. The automated energy conservation decision support system described herein addresses fossil fuel propulsion (gas turbines, steam turbines, and diesel engines), power generation and auxiliary systems. The software tool consists of diagnostic, fuel management, and maintenance modules. The diagnostic module tracks and trends the health state of components that use fuel (and their supporting systems) to provide real-time information on the impact of their current condition on fuel consumption. The fuel management module automates data collection and the generation of fuel curves through open-systems architecture communication with ICAS. It also enables planning by recommending an optimal machinery configuration to minimize fuel consumption based on either speed or time to destination constraints. Additionally, a fuel management module provides real-time information on fuel consumption and optimizes the load of each component based on its health condition, operating requirements and the number and condition of similar components. Finally, overall decision support comes from the maintenance management module that tracks the maintenance actions being performed on fuel consuming systems and recommends future maintenance to be performed (from a fuel conservation standpoint) based on current health information.Copyright © 2010 by ASME