Cruise Ship PLC

Can anyone tell me if cruise ships use PLC control for the ship's infastructure? I'm not looking for work, just curious. No time for cruises just yet.

Thanks

Its funny you said that. My first thought was that you were looking for your dream job.

I've never been on a cruise at all, so I may be way off, but I'd be surprised if they used any PLCs. I mean, what control applications are there on a cruise ship? Waste is just stored and pumped out when they hit dock. They probably have a pump to keep up water pressure, and many bilge pumps which could be conrolled by a PLC. But that would be overkill, there are much simpler controls out there. Same with any kind of climate control or air conditioning systems.

What do yall think?

-jeff

YOu would be surprised at just how much control is used on ships particularly the newer ones that implement variable pitch propellers and yes I have seen PLC's on cruise ships also I've seen a few that use custom PC boards in lieu of PLC's usually on steering. The PLC's I've come across were usually involved in the fresh water renewal systems. On one cruise ship it was used in its waste water treatment system. primarly I've seen em in the subsiduary systems. On military ships at least in Canada they run the damage control systems with touch screen interfaces but those were specifically developed for those applications.

There was a documentary on UK TV about the building of this ship:

http://www.pocruises.com/Oceana/index.aspx

It relied heavily on SCADA and PLC's for all its internal systems

Yes they do, cruise ships are small cities. You name they have it.
http://www.rockwellautomation.com/industries/marine/shipboard.html

Further supporting the A-B website, I have seen all of that in action on a US Coast Guard vessel(although not exactly a Carnival dream vacation cruise). MicroLogix, ControlLogix, and RSView SE were tied together via ControlNet w/ seemingly miles of fiber optic. Fire protection, engine control, you name it, it was PLC controlled.

Amazing. And I thouht it was cool when I was called out to the railroad to troubleshoot a PLC that ran a grinder. The entire cabin was like an oversized enclosure. Wires and equipment everywhere.


-jeff

i saw a job once in the bid bank for the Canadian frigates. They were looking for Modicon PLC to control there main propulsion system

PLC's are everywhere...dock levelers use them now, trash compactors..you name it

My company has installed a PLC-controlled Ozone generating system on an oil tanker. The ballast water must be cleansed before being pumped out and the Ozone is bubbled up through the holds to disinfect the water.

I happen to know a guy who does control systems on yachts. They are very advanced

The short answer is yes. In fact I did a couple several years ago in Fiordland New Zealand. Have a look around this website, especially the Doubtful Sound section:

RealJourneys

Now these are not full sized cruise ships by any stretch, but because they are relatively small they are not operated with a "ships engineer". Instead they have just a single skipper who has to not only manage all the crew, operations and tourist activities, but look after all the ship functions and safety as well. In short the only solution was to fully automate the whole ship, everything except the rudder function was on one Rockwell CLX and RSView32. A very interesting and rewarding job.

The one thing you will get caught up in is that the automation now becomes part of the statutary Marine Survey, so you have to be prepared to spend considerable time working your way through that fairly onerous process. The other aspect is that ship safety can have a very high media and even a local political profile. A boat full of people drifting out of control in close quarters to harbours and the kind of shorelines cruise boats like to visit, will get headlines almost anywhere.

On any new greenfield (or should that be "bluewater"?) projects it is probably need to apply SIL2 or SIL3 category safety techniques to much of the systems you are working with, and you WILL need to have some solid experience in this area BEFORE tackling something as substantial as a cruise ship.

I worked for a company that built shipboard systems for the oil exploration industry. The ships are called dynamically positioned drillships. The positioning systems were PC based and used flex I/O with controlnet. The vessel management and power management systems were comprised mostly of Allen Bradley PLC 5s using hot standby and wonderware HMIs. Most AB stuff is rated for use in shipboard applications.

I don't know about cruise ships, but PLCs are certainly used on board of dredgers. I know because I have been teaching more than 100 people from one of the largest dredging firms in the world (DEME) and I haven't seen the last of them yet.

Kind regards,

jvdcande said:

I don't know about cruise ships, but PLCs are certainly used on board of dredgers. I know because I have been teaching more than 100 people from one of the largest dredging firms in the world (DEME) and I haven't seen the last of them yet.

Kind regards,

Click to expand...

in my time behind the benches at vdab ghent i had the pleasure of meeting tens and more people of a competing dredging firm jan denul (learning plc/electric/hydraulic in there free time for 6 weeks and returning to the palmproject in dubai) i even thought of aplying for a job with them, but got stranded at a other company that's stuck with a crappy qvz blinking led 135/155 s5 plc

Not a cruise ship but - a PLC was used about 15 years ago on the Sydney Harbour ferries - don't know about now but by the number of problems and crashes they have had lately I would guess some bright spark decided to go to computer control.

The PLC was used for monitoring current (water) speed, ferry speed etc etc and then adjusting the propeller pitch and engine speed to the optimum level for economic fuel consumption. That was with 16 bit clunky BCD maths only.

There are also several large manufacturers in Ozz of Catamarans - the big ones - who at least used to use PLCs to run the catts. Once again, don't know about now. Some of these very large catts are still running around Europe.