World’s Biggest Engine - Most Powerful Engine – Emma Maersk’s $170 Million Investment - and World’s Largest Ship
The Engine
An engine is a machine thatburns fuel to produce motion. An engine converts fuel energy into usefulmechanical motion. There are many types of engines but the biggest engines areused in the shipping industry. The world’s biggest engine is theWärtsilä-Sulzer RTA96. This most powerful engine was designed to power acontainer ship called Emma Maersk. Emma Maersk is the world’s largest ship. EmmaMaersk container ship is an approximately $170 million investment by MaerskGroup, a Danish business conglomerate.
Wartsila
The world’s leading producerof diesel and gas engines for powering ships and generating electricity is theFinnish manufacturer, Wartsila, who are headquartered in Helsinki. Wartsila has net sales per year inexcess of $7.5 billions.
World’s Biggest Engine
The world’s biggest engine isthe Wärtsilä-Sulzer RTA96. It’s the largest internal combustion engine everbuilt by man. Wärtsilä-Sulzer RTA96-C isa 14-cylinder, 2-stroke turbocharged diesel engine that was specially designedto power the Emma Maersk which is owned by the Danish Maersk.
Wärtsilä-Sulzer RTA96 Engine
Wärtsilä-Sulzer RTA96, the world’sbiggest engine, has a weight of 2.3 million kilogrammes. If the weight of theaverage adult person is 70 kilogrammes, this world’s biggest engine has a weightequivalent to the weight of 33,000 people.
The crankshaft of worlds biggest engine the crank shaft translates reciprocating linear piston motion into rotation. Compare its size with the size of the man.
World’s Most Powerful Engine Can Light a Small Town
When the world’s biggestengine is running at 102 revolutions per minute, it produces 80 million wattsof power energy. If the average household bulb consumes 60 watts of energy, 80million watts is enough power for 1.3 million bulbs. If the average house has 6bulbs lighting at any one time, the Wärtsilä-Sulzer RTA96 engine will produceenough power to light 220,000 houses. If the average house has three occupants,this world’s most powerful engine will provide enough energy for 660,000people. 660,000 people are the population of a small town.
Engine Cost $6,800 per Hour to Run
The Wärtsilä-Sulzer RTA96engine consumes 13,000 litres of heavy fuel per hour. If one barrel of oil isequal to 158.76 litres, the world’s biggest engine consumes 81.1 barrels of oilper hour. If the price of oil is $84/barrel in the world oil markets, Wärtsilä-SulzerRTA96 engine will cost $6,800 per hour. If the average American works 200 hoursper month at $15/hour for a total of $3,000 per month, the world’s mostpowerful engine will cost an average American a 2 months salary to run for onehour.
The cylinders deck of the world's largest engine.
The Engine Is As Big As a Block of Apartments
The Wärtsilä-Sulzer RTA96engine has a length of 89 feet and a height of 44 feet. The length of 89 feetis equivalent to about four 20’ shipping containers joined together. The heightbetween two floors in a story house is about 9 feet. The engine’s height of 44feet is equivalent to the height of a 5 stories house. When you look at the Wärtsilä-SulzerRTA96 engine, it’s as if you are looking at a block of apartments.
$170 Million Emma Maersk Is A Clever Investment
And then a day came inSeptember 2006 when the world’s biggest engine was completed and fully mountedon the $170 Million Emma Maersk. The $170 Million Emma Maersk is a cleverinvestment of the Denmark-based Maersk Line. By the end of year 2009, EmmaMaersk had 7 other sister ships of similar magnitude, making it one of the hugestinvestment in the entire shipping industry by Maersk Line.
Emma Maersk and Her 7 Sister Ships
Emma Maersk and her 7 sisterships are currently the largest container ships on earth. Emma Maersk has acarrying capacity of up to 15,000 TEU. TEU means twenty-foot equivalent unit.TEU is the standard unit for describing a ship's cargo carrying capacity. Astandard 20-foot (20’ x 8’ x 8’) container is equal to one TEU. This means thecapacity of Emma Maersk is 15,000 20 feet containers. A 20’ container can carry14 tonnes. This Emma Maersk with 15,000 containers has the capacity to carry210 million kilogrammes. An average adult person can consume 500 grams of wheatper day. In a month he will consume 15 kilogrammes of wheat. With 210 millionkilogrammes of wheat, 14 million people can be fed by Emma Maersk for a month.A small country like Somaliawith a population of 9 million can be fed by Emma Maersk for one and a halfmonth.
Emma Maersk - currently the largest container ship on earth. Look at how small the ship next to it look. Image credit: Wikipedia Commons.
Length of Emma Maersk Is 1300 Feet
The overall length of EmmaMaersk is 1300 feet which is slightly less than half a kilometre. Thesupertanker, Knock Nevis, is 1500 feet long whilst Titanic length was 882 feet.
Emma Maersk Has a Cruising Speed of 25.5 Knots
World’s largest ship, EmmaMaersk, has a cruising speed of 25.5 knots. One knot is about 0.5 metres persecond. 0.5 metres per second is equal to 30 metres per minute which is equalto 1800 metres per hour. 25.5 knots is therefore equal to 45,900 metres perhour which is 45.90 Km/hour. The world’s fastest man is Usain St. Leo whocruises at a top speed of 37.1 Km/hour. This means that the world’s biggestship will leave the world’s fastest man by a good distance.
No Good News to the Girls
Emma Maersk carries with it acrew of 13 people with extra room for 17 more people. This makes a lot ofeconomic sense to Maersk line as almost every space is making money to thecompany. The saving in money is then translated to a lower shipping rate forthe cargo. But that is not good news to the inhabitants of the ports where itdocks. A ship this size is supposed tochange the lifestyle of the girls and other inhabitants of where it docks, atleast for all that time the ship remains docked at the harbors. This ship isnot able to entertain the inhabitants of where it docks due to its small crewsize.
Canals and Bridges have to Upgrade
The size of Emma Maerskshould serve as a call to those canals with limited lock sizes to upgradeimmediately otherwise they risk losing business to other canals and ports. Thesame is true to those with smaller bridges to upgrade accordingly.
Source http://hubpages.com/
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