Safety performance assessment of a marine dual fuel engine by integrating failure mode, effects and criticality analysis with simulation tools

Marine Dual Fuel engines have been proved an attractive solution to improve the shipping industry sustainability and environmental footprint. Compared to the conventional diesel engines, the use of additional components to accommodate the natural gas feeding is associated with several safety implications. To ensure the engine safe operation, appropriate engine control and safety systems are of vital importance, whilst potential safety implications due to sensors and actuators faults or failures must be considered. This study aims at investigating the safety issues of a marine dual fuel (DF) engine considering critical operating scenarios, which are identified by employing a Failure Mode, Effects and Criticality Analysis. An existing verified digital twin (DT) of the investigated DF engine, capable of predicting the engine response at steady state and transient conditions with sufficient accuracy is employed to simulate the engine operation for the identified scenarios. The simulated scenarios results analysis is used to support the risk priority number assessment and identify the potential safety implications by considering the manufacturer alarm limits. Appropriate measures are recommended for the investigated DF engine safety performance improvement. This study demonstrates a methodology integrating existing safety methods with state-of-the-art simulation tools for facilitating and enhancing the safety assessment process of marine DF engines considering both steady state conditions and transient operation with main focus on switching operating modes.