Using polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells in a hybrid surface ship propulsion plant to increase fuel efficiency

An increasingly mobile US Navy surface fleet and oil price uncertainty contrast with the Navy's desire to lower the amount of money spent purchasing fuel. Operational restrictions limiting fuel use are temporary and cannot be dependably relied upon. Long term technical research toward improving fuel efficiency is ongoing and includes advanced gas turbines and integrated electric propulsion plants, but these will not be implemented fleet wide in the near future. The focus of this research is to determine if a hybrid fuel cell and gas turbine propulsion plant outweigh the potential ship design disadvantages of physically implementing the system. Based on the potential fuel savings available, the impact on surface ship architecture will be determined by modeling the hybrid fuel cell powered ship and conducting a side by side comparison to one traditionally powered. Another concern that this solution addresses is the trend in the commercial shipping industry of designing more cleanly running propulsion plants.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Mechanical Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2010

Author dc:creator

• Kroll, Douglas M. (Douglas Michael)

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Mark S. Welsh and Pat Hale.

• Mechanical Engineering.
• Engineering Systems Division.
• System Design and Management Program.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/61909

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/61909