Essay On Marine Propulsion

Introduction

Marine propulsion is the machinery or system used to produce thrust to transport a ship or boat through the sea or river. Other than paddles and sails that are still used on some smaller boats, most of the recent ships are driven by mechanical systems.

Type of Propulsion

Steam engines were the “pioneer” of mechanical engines used in marine propulsion, though it had already switched to two-stroke or four-stroke diesel engines, outboard motors, and gas turbine engines on faster ships. Diesel propulsion system is most frequently used marine propulsion system converting mechanical energy from thermal forces. Diesel propulsion systems are mainly used in nearly every type of vessels.

Nuclear propulsion reactors are used to drive warships

For naval ships, the gas turbine propulsion system enhances the movement of the ships when the ship embattled.

Stirling engines, which are more efficient, silent, and smoother running creating less damaging emissions compare to diesel engines, thrust some of the small submarines. The submarines keep compressed oxygen to enable more effective and cleaner external fuel combustion when submerged, providing energy for the its operation.

Until the application of the coal-fired steam engine to ships during the first 19th century, paddles or the wind still used to support watercraft propulsion. In modern times, human propulsion is found mainly on small boats or as auxiliary propulsion on sailboats by the push pole, rowing, and pedals.

The diesel engine is an internal combustion engine in which explosion of the fossil fuel that has been inserted into the combustion chamber is started by the high temperature which a gas accomplishes when really compressed (adiabatic compression). This differences with spark-explosion engines such as a petrol engine or gas engine, which use a spark plug to ignite an air-fuel mixture.

Diesel engines are the power behind our biggest machines—trucks, trains, ships, submarines, heavy equipment and electricity power