Class Approval for Wärtsilä Steerable Thruster

Posted by Irina Tabakina

DNV-GL  approved the design of the Wärtsilä WST-14 thruster, significant as approval was granted based on a thruster design that has yet to be introduced into full series production. The approval by DNV-GL follows the release of Wärtsilä’s next generation of thrusters at the end of 2013. The new WST-14 is part of the Wärtsilä Steerable Thruster (WST) compact series, which is aimed at tugs, anchor handling vessels, and coastal and inland waterway cargo vessels. The series is also designed so as to comply with the latest environmental regulations, such as the US EPA VGP 2013 requirements. The approval is an important step towards obtaining type approval for the WST-14 thruster.   Wärtsilä has earlier acquired type approval for several thruster products. However, for the newest Wärtsilä Steerable Thruster (WST) portfolio, Wärtsilä has begun the process towards type approval from the earliest possible moment.  A prototype of the thruster is being built at the company’s dedicated manufacturing facilities in Wuxi, China, and will be shipped to Finland for testing and validation at the Wärtsilä Propulsion Test Center.
 


(As published in the November 2014 edition of Maritime Reporter & Engineering News - http://magazines.marinelink.com/Magazines/MaritimeReporter)

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