- #1
Anand Sivaram
- 90
- 43
- TL;DR Summary
- Turboprop for ship
Normally ships use either marine diesel engine or turboshaft gas turbine connected to the main water propeller.
I was wondering why aircraft like turboprop could not be used. Unlike turbojets, turboprops have good efficiency when both the vehicle speed and propeller tip speed are much lower compared to the speed of sound. Ships anyway are slow moving. That way, the whole propulsion could be air based.
For example C130J has four turboprops of around 3500KW each. Whereas the largest turboprops like the Soviet Tu-95 or An-22 use four contra rotating turboprops of 11000KW each.
In a ship 6 or 8 of these turboprops could be used and that could easily get upto 60MW of power.
Is there any particular reason why no one is using it?
I was wondering why aircraft like turboprop could not be used. Unlike turbojets, turboprops have good efficiency when both the vehicle speed and propeller tip speed are much lower compared to the speed of sound. Ships anyway are slow moving. That way, the whole propulsion could be air based.
For example C130J has four turboprops of around 3500KW each. Whereas the largest turboprops like the Soviet Tu-95 or An-22 use four contra rotating turboprops of 11000KW each.
In a ship 6 or 8 of these turboprops could be used and that could easily get upto 60MW of power.
Is there any particular reason why no one is using it?