Risk assessment of marine high-speed diesel engine failures onboard naval vessels using failure mode and effect analysis

High-speed diesel engines are commonly used on board of naval and patrol vessels. In this case, in Malaysia these high-speed diesel engines are used especially in ‘Malaysian Marine Enforcement Agencies’ fleets such as the Royal Malaysian Navy and Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agencies where the naval and patrol vessels are used for daily patrols and surveillances. These aging engines are facing potential breakdowns or in the worst case a total engine failure which at the end will jeopardize their patrol and duty at hand. Considering these highly likely potential breakdowns, a risk assessment is necessary to prevent or minimize the chances of breakdown in the future. This risk assessment is crucial to the crew’s safety during the operation of the ship and this could avoid a catastrophic failure happening to the engine. An engine failure of a naval vessel cannot be considered as a normal thing in any vessel operation because the engine is the main system to propel a ship forward in calm and rough seas. Any failure will hinder the crews in executing their daily task as defense and enforcement agencies for the Malaysian government. The durability of the engine from time to time will be deterioting and it is easy to damage the internal part of the engine caused by forcing the engine to work harder than it can especially when the engines are more than 50 years old. Risk assessment or risk failure analysis is designed to identify the condition of an engine. In this research the method of risk analysis used is the failure mode and effect analysis (FMEA). The FMEA is an important tool to come out with risk assessment on potential engine failure. Based on these FMEAs, operation checklists were generated so that it could be used for the engine crews for daily routine inspection. These enhanced daily routine inspections could prevent unexpected breakdown of these high-speed diesel engine.