Occured after a failure of a capacitor- part of the diesel-electric propulsion system
The UK Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) has released the result of its investigations into a failure of a capacitor, part of the diesel-electric propulsion system of the cruise ship ‘Queen Mary 2’.
The MAIB feels that there are lessons that the industry should learn from this incident, which resulted in an explosion onboard,so has asked for our help in promulgating the information.
Key issues:
- Explosion in the machinery space was triggered by the failure of a large capacitor within a 11kV passive harmonic filter
- The protection system for the harmonic filter did not work
- Vessel blacked out and was without steering or propulsion for 30 minutes. There were 3823 people on board at the time of the accident
- The investigation identified that there is a need to improve the awareness of the potential risks of high voltage harmonic distortion and arc flash.
You can view the Report by clicking here.
Source: MAIB
