Sterntube seal benefits from new control panel

The company says that this new design has been developed as a result of customer feedback. Adjustments can be made via the screen, which is claimed to offer ease of use and greater security due to the integration of the monitoring systems. Any significant deviation to set values will activate the alarm system, the system being said to allow the crew to identify malfunctions more easily and to respond to them more quickly.

“Our customers were looking for an integrated control system where the operator could see at a glance the current state of the sealing system. The screen has been designed to show clearly on one screen the whole of the sterntube and propeller arrangement together with the sealing system itself, thereby making it a lot easier to understand the interactions between the sealing system and the vessel’s loaded condition” explains Mathias Rusch, head of shaft components at Blohm + Voss Industries. “The touch screen also enables us to arrange all the important functions such as operating pressure, drain settings or vessel constants in a clear, easy to read way. Obviously we also included password security to protect access to the control panel.”

“The new control panel has been designed so that it can also be retrofitted onto already installed SC2 Airspace seals” explains Mr Rusch. “We anticipate that as a result of the increased ease of operation as well as the increased system security quite a number of our current operators will be asking us to install this new panel on their existing seals. This is easily done without any major modifications, and because of the modular design of the screen we can also incorporate extra functions to suit the individual needs of customers, for example tank filling, peak pressure absorber (PPA) and tank pressurisation.”