Page 73: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (November 2005)

November 2005 73

Andreas Sikorski, Service Director at MaK

Deutschland is satisfied, as the recent and first 30,000- hour overhaul on a MaK M43 reportedly exhibited out- standing results. "Satisfactory seals, intact valves, piston rings in order, bearings without cavitation phenomena and sta- ble running patters on rollers and cams."

MaK Deutschland GmbH & Co. KG, a subsidiary of the German Caterpillar dealer Zeppelin Baumaschinen

GmbH, has the exclusive sales and service license for

MaK branded engines in Germany, Austria,

Switzerland, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Hungary,

Slovakia, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Russia and all of the former CIS states. Otterndorf, Germany shipowner

Heinz Ehler expressed confidence in the brand when he had his container feeder Anke Ehler - the first ship of the Sietas 160A Type - equipped with the 8 M43, which was then brand new. After the engine was offi- cially introduced in 1998 (as the fourth type of the new

MaK engine generation), the commissioning of the

Anke Ehler in April 2000 represented the commercial premiere for the MaK M43. The 658 TEU ship is also equipped with two Cat 3412 auxiliary diesels and a Cat 3304 emergency diesel.

Five years have passed with the Anke Ehler in serv- ice in the North Sea and the Baltic under contract to the

Unifeeder shipping line. In the same period, Caterpillar

Marine Power Systems has sold more than 400 addi- tional 6, 7, 8, 9 and 12 cylinder engines of the MaK M 43 series. Approximately 90 percent of these operate as the main engine, driving adjustable propellers and shaft generators in heavy oil operation, and the other 10 percent are used in diesel-electric propulsion sys- tems or stationary electricity generation plants.

In the power range from 5,000 kW to 8,000 kW, the

MaK M 43 in-line engine has made a strong mark in the container feeder, RoRo ferrie and RoPax ship nich- es. In order to minimize the work necessary, the com- pany's DICARE diagnosis system is being increasing- ly employed.

DICARE monitors all the important engine parame- ters and generates, from them, a continually updated analysis of the engine condition. These reports are made available to the ship's management and, option- ally, by means of remote data transmission, to the ship- ping line or the respective service partner of Caterpillar

Marine Power Systems. Some 300 measurements are detected in this way. They are then prepared for graph- ical, required/actual comparison and, as part of the expert system, are compressed to condition-dependent service recommendations. In this way, time in the yard, service operations, spare parts provision and personnel dispositions can be planned in an optimum manner. 30,000-hour overhaul

Up to now, some forty 15,000 operating hour over- hauls have been carried out on M 43 engines. In total, the main engines now in service represent an experi- ence stock of more than 2.9 million operating hours.

Nevertheless, the tension was high when the Anke

Ehler came in for the class docking at the Hamburg

Norderwerft at the beginning of April 2005. "The timetable for the engine overhaul was fixed at just four working days, a tight schedule because, at the request of the shipping line, the cylinder heads had to be reused and, therefore, had to be transported to our

Hamburg workshop for investigation and possible rework," explains Sikorski. "However, we were appro- priately prepared with two teams consisting of experi- enced specialists and operating in two shifts."

The following operations were carried out as part of the 30,000 operating hours overhaul on the Anke

Ehler: • Cylinder heads (remove, dismantle, clean)

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Propulsion Update

MaK M43 Passes the Test

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