The large diesel engine represents the core component in complex drive systems for ships, locomotives and generators. In the planning and design phases the mutual interaction between all subsystems is hardly known and potential problems can not be forecasted properly. The selection and optimization requirements of shipyards, engine and accessory equipment manufacturers are time consuming and costly. Therefore, a computational simulation tool of the interaction of all components of a drive system with each other is necessary.

For the analysis of the whole process in high-power engine plants a comprehensive program system was developed, consisting of different model modules (corresponding to each equipment component). The interaction between modules is controlled by a master program. In the context of this project modules were developed for ship-specific equipment components.

Advantage of this flexible, modular program architecture it that it enables with relatively small expenditure the user to simulate and optimize different configurations of its plant in the planning and design phase. For example, the transition behaviour of the whole power train may be computationally simulated under different operating conditions. For the evaluation and testing of the simulation tool results were used from measurements in a modern container ship. The operation conditions tested were, among others, the starting and stop manoeuvers, with the relevant data sampled from the drive components and suitably stored in-situ.

With this type of whole process analysis it is possible to perform an optimization of the overall drive system of a ship, as regards the individual components (e.g., engine, transmission, clutches, propellers), their layout and their mutual interactions.

A beta version of the program was placed at the disposal of the industrial Enterprises involved in the project so that, after a short user familiarisation session at TUHH, the users can tackle successfully problems from the practice.