Lithium.Ion Battery fires

Yep but the owner has to get it on charter and the poor crew have to get it to work.

Its a shame there are no rules that says a vessel can be usable by humans

Some do get stopped by the unions in Australia and sent back overseas.

In the words of the biggest recycler in the industry, they will end up in land fill as mining new is cheaper
( Former partner in Tesla)

I dont think playing with untried experiments is compatible with vessels working in a commercial role.
Crew and owner suffer for what reason and compensation?

PS> The battery banks used on ships doesn’t look like the picture in the article above.
Here is a typical battery room on a hybrid OSV:
image
Corvus Orca Energy, the world’s most widely deployed maritime ESS, is versatile for a wide range of applications and scalable from 80-10,000 kWh. (Photo: Corvus Energy)

Strict rules apply for the use of batteries on ships:

Strict rules with emerging technology just means we tried but dont have a trail of experience.
Not much you can do about that if you want to put emerging technologies onto working vessels.

Plenty of power management systems went onto vessels with unknown issues only found after they left the dock.
We had an issue on one of several rigs identical that came down to firmware in a breaker ( issue only happened on one vessel but it would on all in the same circumstance.)
Never resolved by the vendor afaik.

Fact of life to day is most stuff is un-testable in all scenarios, certainly software.
Comforting when you see the technicians writing code to get your new vessel to work during sea trials…where is class in all this??

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as an aside. they say that china has a subway system that uses capacitor. each car has one. when the train stops at the station, and it charges each cars capacitor while passengers embark and debark. thought that was pretty novel as each car has its own electric drive rather than just connected to a central system and chained together with extension cords. perhaps research into large lasting capacitors is the way to go. Just imagine the weight savings VS the weight of the battery. the reduced risk of exposer to battery hazards.

as an example, a fiberglass composite OSV’s and other work boats for an example may be the most innovate approach.

for a very long time most countries have embraced composite vessel construction and laugh at the USA which has not really gone much father up the evolutionary scale than aluminum. a poor material and salt water with a high degree of Maintenace and a short longevity.

when a broached my comment to a shipyard owner years ago, he agreed prefacing his comment by saying that aluminum repair was his bread and butter and paid better than steel work

Don’t know if there are any OSVs made from fiber composite material but popular for HSCs, smaller fishing boats and yachts.

One of the main builders of composits HSC in Norway is (was?) trying to introduce their technology in the US through a partnership with a local boat yard:

Don’t know if that has resulted in anything actually built for the US market. (??)

PS> They received “Ship of the Year” award for three HSC delivered to Greece:

They also build electric HSCs:

The Hydrogen powered version is coming:
https://www.theexplorer.no/solutions/hydrogen-fast-ferry-for-zero-emission-passenger-transport/

i am afraid that the USA is still in horse and buggy thinking. all english motor life boat service vessels are composite and they really take a beating. and 3 to 400 ft yachts have been using composites for years. I have advocated this in many social situations with the USCG whose eyes just glaze over as they have no idea what i am talking about

i am afraid that beer can technology is the limit of their knowledge.

Cant see any advantage in making an OSV in composite?
Minesweeper yes

Saying composite can mean sold polyester layup to epoxy carbon with numerous cores which is twice the cost.
Whats the problem are we solving moving away from steel?

Less horsepower required less Sox emission lower fuel cost less maintenance ect may not be more money than a metal hull carbon and exotics don’t have to be used. Vacuum bagging with foam or balsa is common place Europe and know well in the USA

Not sure a displacement vessel has an advantage when its light
Vacuum bagging with foam and balsa was invented by Boeing so long history of that in the USA.
Megayachts have a choice of what they do, 99% are steel hull
The Japanese did a couple of 50m yachts years ago, nobody followed down that path.
To get structural strength in plain glass the boat ends up about the same weight.
Wood, glass aluminium and steel all have crossover points where they are more effective.
Light does nothing for you in the offshore industry.

We need to add some mountings for some specialised equipment to your deck, easy weld them on, a bit more complicated with anything else

The material used by Brødrene Aa for their HSCs are Carbon Fiber Composite together with the concept of sandwich technology:

Source: https://www.diabgroup.com/cases/marine-commercial-new-carbon-fiber-catamaran-from-brodrene-aa/

nothing new, many racing yachts and powerboats built like this.

Mountings can be g 10 encapsulated
Then through bolted or otherwise mechanically fastened
Maybe Jack up wind farm application of composite hulls. Just a thought I am pro diesel as I am old school trained :grinning: hydrogen is to me smoke and mirrors
I can’t help thinking the graft s zeppelin
‘’Oh the humanity’’

Cant se any advantage in offshore less in your FRC with glass.
Steel got so many advantages

Maybe start by not putting “teslars” on rooftops.

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Not sure when the first racing yacht or power boat was made using carbon fiber composites but the first for commercial use was built in 2002:

44kts says light counts, so good choice.
Think you will find carbon reinforcement has been used for many industries since the 70’s

Reading this thread I am struck by this:
Where is all the R&D towards making an extinguishing agent/system for dealing with lithium battery fires?

This ties into the moribund nature of MARAD. MARAD at its inception was meant to be a regulatory/oversight agency matching in scope what the FAA does today. I could see the FAA deciding to allocate money to R&D an extinguisher for these batteries. Probably turn the issue over to NASA. That’s one reason NASA was created.

But MARAD would never do it. They lost their engineering component fifty years ago. And it’s not in the USCG’s brief to R&D solutions to merchant marine problems.

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i’d say there is no tech on how to extinguish a lithium battery.
I hear from some US based guys what their county fire brigades need to do re an EV wreck.
Must stand by even after the car is towed, huge safety zone around car for several days as they can burst into flames at any time.
Cant wait for a 3.5mw battery on an osv to go up