Chinese Marine Propulsion

Much thanks for the hard work. These sort of posts are always among the most illuminating.

Interesting that there is a 40MW competition; I wonder what application it could have once it's ready. Naturally I would think the next generation of surface combatants; 055A, 052E, 054B, however it seems like whichever GT engines up winning that competition it would still be a while until it is ready for mass production and that would likely be after those ships are intended to be ready.

That said having a 40MW class GT is not unsurprising considering the growing use of MT30s in some current and upcoming warships.

 

This is quite good info!

With regards to Chinese access to marine diesel engines this link might provide some help.
https://www.wartsila.com/media/news...roke-engine-joint-venture-to-start-operations

Also there are Chinese manufacturers with licenses to manufacture either MAN or SEMT Pielstick engine models.

I can understand the events the led us to this point. But I think, in the long range, the wider the split between the Chinese marine and airplane gas turbine manufacturers grows the more resources the Chinese will need to expend to compete in the world market.

 

GT gen sets for IEP and EM weapons would be top of my list!

 

Of course, although the existing GT25000s could be comfortably used for that role as well.

40MW gas turbines would clearly correspond to a different powerplant configuration compared to using existing GT25000s with both used for IEPS

 

Not really, the extra power comes from a small increase in volume, therefore power density improves, as the power source for IEP and EM isn't prescriptive you could say marine diesel gensets could also cover it but they come at a even higher space/weight requirement! Therefore, not really sure what point you are making apart from they must have a cunning plan to need 40MW GTs in some configuration.

Generally, if you have the space, in a IEP diesels for base load, adding GTs for peak load, for fuel efficiency, if space is not available all GTs because, well, you don't have the space! As the claimed power boost results from ICR it should make the GTs run more efficiently across a wider power output spectrum therefore could potentially replace diesel sets and reduce maintenance overheads, that may be the more important attribute rather than the 20% power boost.

My thoughts are that the electrical budget in future ships will go up as evidenced by the direction of travel of the PLA Navy's technological developments so you can either stuff more and more GTs into the machinery spaces and make a bigger ship or use more powerful ones and keep the ships roughly the same size, rocket science it is not!

The only other use case for boosting the unit power output would be that the next carrier will be conventional using GTs as the power plant instead of steam or for new LHDs since as you say the 33MW GT is plenty big enough for the current crop of ships.

 

Why? These two applications require completely different optimization parameters. Not every application that shares a base technology benefits from the same research emphasis that drives each application. It would be a huge mistake not to have diversified offerings with R&D that is specialized to the mode of the technology specific to the market requirements you’re trying to meet.

 

great so those Type 726 are still useless

thought so yet they are building more LPD?

 

Regarding QC280, as I read from

Thanks for the informative posts. Regarding QC280 I have to disagree.
Gongke's word was "606的叫QC400太行基础上发展的，用间冷，中船703所的叫GT25000IC，QC280这个号以后有没有还两说呢。" Which means the type QC280 may or may not be granted. By saying that he does admit the existence of the engine program. He only doubt if the engine will get endorsement for a type name.
He also said (in your first link) ""QC280是中航发编号，GT25000IC是中船编号，两个激烈竞争中。" QC280 is AVIC's type number which is in competition at the time of speaking August 2018. And the result should be out at the end of 2018.

Then there is another post in 2017 https://lt.cjdby.net/thread-2360500-1-1.html which according to AVIC publication that QC280/QD280 has reached 20 per year production capacity. I can not find the original report from AVIC site, but I found this link from ICBC in their stock report 中航动力：部分募投项目竣工验收 which says

The company's program of establishing production capacity for QC280/QD280 has been achieved. Together with the 2017 cjdby post just above it is clear that the capacity is 20 per year.

I don't know if there is any dispute between some Chinese companies around QC280, nor do I know if I should trust any claims of such dispute. But it is clear that the program and the engine not only finished development but reached mass production by 2017.

Since QC280's capacity program started at 2009 lasted to 2017 and in active competition right now, any controversy regarding IP can be and should be ignored because any accusation in the last minute would be seen as a pure sabotage of competition and waste of state fund. The only thing that can exclude QC280 in Navy's program would be underperformance than its peer.

 

Interesting, so this is GT-25000




So how does this compare to the western gold standard LM2500?