Taking action against poor copies

In recent years there have been a growing number of reports emerging from all sections of the maritime community about damage or accidents caused by the inadvertent use of imitation ship machinery parts.

Because imitation parts are manufactured illegally without due respect for patent rights and other intellectual property laws, they cannot offer the same performance guarantees as authentic parts. Apart from the risks this poses for safe vessel operation, the inferior reliability of imitation parts has also been directly linked to a number of engine room accidents.

Investigation

In 2003, the Japanese Marine Equipment Association (JSMEA), an umbrella organization that represents approximately 200 Japanese ship machinery manufacturers, instigated an investigation to measure the extent of this problem and identify the potential implications to shipowners and other end-users. This revealed significant deficiencies in all the imitation parts examined.

Having obtained conclusive proof of the dangers imitation parts pose to individual shipowners and to the industry as a whole, JSMEA launched a campaign to raise awareness of the issue among shipowners, ship managers and members of the ship repair industry.

As part of this campaign, the association is holding an open seminar at SMM 2004 that will present several specific case histories from companies such as Daihatsu Diesel, Yanmar, Shinko Industries and Taiko Kikai Industries. n

Serious breakdowns have occurred due to the use of imitation parts. Here are a few examples:

Connecting rod bolt

While underway a connection rod in one of three power generations engines broke. First the bolt broke, then the connection rod. This caused damage to the piston and liner, which resulted in major engine breakdown. In this case an imitation rod was used and insufficient strength was the cause of breakage. While the head height of the genuine part is 29.5 mm, in the imitation part it was only 28 mm.

Intake and exhaust valves

Intake and exhaust valve breakdowns caused power generation engine stoppage. The owner of the ship requested repairs and a repairman came on board. There were many unused parts on board, but they were all imitation parts. The breakdown was caused by broken T-yoke imitation parts, and the breakdown of the intake and exhaust valves led to the stoppage of the engine.

Main bearing metal

The use of imitation part main bearing material resulted in the bearing metal locking up and causing the bearing to turn with the journal, which caused the crankshaft to seize up resulting in a major breakdown. In addition, insufficient lubrication had caused the piston and cylinder liner to seize, so if operation had been continued for several more hours it would have resulted in the piston cracking and the connection rod being broken.

Coalescer

During the Port State Control inspection while in port, it was found that an oily water separator was not functioning properly, so the ship was detained. Because of no immediate repair parts availability, exceptional permission to sail to the next port, where the separator could be inspected and serviced, was obtained from the PSC. The cause was the installation of a coalescer imitation part that obstructs proper function of the separator.

Pump

A seawater pump seized up and stopped. The mouth ring and seal ring of mechanical seal were imitation parts. Ball bearings in the cargo oil pump also got hot. Though labeled as OEM, these pump parts were found to have ball bearings different from genuine parts. A mechanical seal leakage was also caused by an imitation O-ring.