Automatic Valve Operation for Bunkering

Abstract

Bunkering means refueling of the ships including the fuel filling and distributing the fuel which is being supplied to the shipboard tank. Bunkering is the most difficult procedure of operation on a ship which may lead to several accident and lead to spill of HFO into the sea. Bunkering on a ship can be of fuel oil, sludge, diesel oil, cargo etc. Bunkering of. fuel oil or diesel oil requires most care and alternate to prevent the different kind and type of accidents and oil spill. Current scenario of bunkering system is done manually. This process takes more man power and requires continuous sounding of the tank at particular time interval. So, it is necessary to find out an alternate solution which gives continuous sounding of the bunker tank automatically all the time. The proposed project aims to overcome above problems. A model is fabricated with two tanks, a submersible pump, solenoid valve, microcontroller which controls the operation of valve for bunkering operation and sensors to sense the level of the tanks such that the valves open and close at preset time. The prototype was tested based on time taken in filling a tank and the response of the sensor with respect to time was identified. It is found that the time taken for bunkering is reduced.