Fully Electric Cargo Ship for Amazon River (Boat Design: 1st Post)

Discussion in 'Boat Design' started by FullyElectricAM, Feb 27, 2016.

  1. FullyElectricAM
    Joined: Feb 2016
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    Location: Puerto Maldonado Peru

    FullyElectricAM Junior Member

    Im beginning to think none of you know what on topic means, or perhaps I overestimated the level of contribution this board has to offer. Wont stop me from posting though, if only to show you all what is possible.

    As for the weight of batteries in effect to the tonnage of the boat which I consider at least close to the point of this thread. Two 8kw brush driven motors can be run on approximately 50 tons of batteries for more than 120 hours if properly managed. These motors are used in high seas on smaller vessels. Even if I have to double the weight in batteries, I can still hit my goal for cargo easily.
     
  2. FullyElectricAM
    Joined: Feb 2016
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    Location: Puerto Maldonado Peru

    FullyElectricAM Junior Member

    I have bolded the statement. Many people on this board know what propeller to use based on the hull design and weight requirement of the boat. This is why I am here. I have read threads for smaller ships with hull differences that have information on using JavaProp, and books to determine hull design needs. I have studied these threads extensively, but they do not match my needs exactly and that is why I posted this thread. To get the same help offered to others. It doesn't have to be a precise floating model, I don't need someone to sign off on a certificate that the boat is worthy of voyage or passengers. I just need a base model for hull design and prop to get started on torque requirements for selecting the proper motor for the application.

    If you do not know, please do not respond. This isn't a competition to see who can poke the most holes in the mission of my boat, it is an honest inquiry posted in good faith.
     
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  3. WestVanHan
    Joined: Aug 2009
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    WestVanHan Not a Senior Member

    I spent a couple minutes:
    -looked at Amazon River Boats to get an idea of horsepower-which you seem incapable of,or are too lazy to do.
    -converted to watts/amps hours
    -looked at batteries to see price/weight/amp hours etc

    BUT seeing as you don't like what I wrote, and constructive criticism bothers you-I won't bother you again.

    Dream on....
     
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  4. FullyElectricAM
    Joined: Feb 2016
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    Location: Puerto Maldonado Peru

    FullyElectricAM Junior Member

    I apologize, I am up very late and that is not excuse to be this grumpy. I am also very disturbed at the responses that I have gotten on this thread. I have been thinking about this boat for years, and I work in projects that apply these free energy concepts in the jungle and at many different locations and I meet resistance like this all the time, I normally handle it much better. I am very aware of the challenges and limitations of these energy concepts. I have also built and designed a DC driven retrofit for a Nissan Pickup in the states that ran off of a Netgain Warp9 motor, and my racing friends said the same things all of you are saying now, it can't be done, well they were obviously wrong.


    As for the quoted post, I can also admit when I am incapable. I have asked and asked local captains for two weeks now what their specs are on their own boats in regards to size of prop and horsepower requirements, and they don't know. I have searched Google and I have came up empty for design specs on these boats.

    If you give me only the Google search string to the specs you found I can do the rest.

    I do not wish to argue with you any of you any longer. This boat will be built. We may drop parts of the mission, and we may run diesel for 2 years to build the capital for retrofit, but all of that will not come until after I design a boat on paper. I will bump this thread until I get what I need, once or twice a day. Not to harass, but to seek information. I too have been driven off topic by these posts, and perhaps it is because I gave too much information in the very first part of the post. I will not take that information back and pretend to be someone else to get what I need, it wouldn't be effective anyway because the boat is in too unique a place of the world, with too unique a set of specs. All I wish is to move forward with design. So far the best help I have received here is to find a Naval Architect. That is what I will do, as I bump this thread once or twice a day, until it is done.
     
  5. Stumble
    Joined: Oct 2008
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    Location: New Orleans

    Stumble Senior Member

    It is trivial to convert HP to battery requirements. 1hp=.75kw, assuming 12v batteries 1kwh= 12v * 83.33amph.

    A high quality deep cycle 8d battery runs about $350 has a usable capacity of 110ah and weighs 140lbs. This works out well with the battery size, since it means a single 8d battery can provide about 1kwh or power before needing to be recharges.

    Assuming the vessel uses 100hp at a cruising speed of 8kn, and you want a usable range of 40nm, that means you need roughly 500 8d batteries, at a cost of $175,000 and a weight of 70,000lbs.


    We are not trying to force you to justify your goal, but point out the real world problems with the idea. It is exceedingly difficult to operate a vessel with just battery power. There simply isn't a lot of energy density in batteries. If it is really the mission statement then you need to design the entire vessel around the power train, which means engaging a good NA at the start of the process.

    As far as general design... To be as efficient as possible you want something as long and lean as possible. I don't know the practical restraints of the area, but 100' long and 15' wide would be a good start. With 35 tons of ballast from batteries you may be able to go even narrower and retain stability. At a L/B of 10:1 it would be even more efficient, say 100'x10'.
     
  6. Stumble
    Joined: Oct 2008
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    Stumble Senior Member

    There are a number of websites that broker used cargo ships, I would suggest spending some time looking over the specs of vessels offered there to give you an idea of what you are looking at. A 200 GRT vessel is very much on the small size for commercial vessels, but you may be able to track down something similar.
     
  7. FullyElectricAM
    Joined: Feb 2016
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    Location: Puerto Maldonado Peru

    FullyElectricAM Junior Member

    Stumble no one runs 12v DC motors for High Torque applications. I'll run 48v. To run an 8kw Motor at 48v for one hour you need 167 Ah. 20 forklift batteries on an 8kw motor at 48v for 5 days requires a 20040 AH. Double that for two motors and you get 40080 +20% is a little under 50000 AH. I rounded up for extra juice to run a movie theater or some other amenity, that is 50 1000AH batteries at 2188lbs each is 54.7 tons. You can check my WH to AH conversion here:

    http://everydaycalculation.com/kwh-ah.php

    The numbers above I didnt make up, I got the RPM from the boat captains, and I halved their vessel size to make my own with a little extra off to make room for dragging netting. I need to know the prop size, in comparison to the hull. I can and do know how to apply DC motors and batteries to the proper application.

    EDIT FOR CORRECTION TO WEIGHT.
     
  8. Mr Efficiency
    Joined: Oct 2010
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    Mr Efficiency Senior Member

    A "little extra" to drag netting ? I doubt that would be as minor as you imagine. That is a wacky idea that is certain to be nothing but trouble. Catch lots of debris you do not want.
     
  9. FullyElectricAM
    Joined: Feb 2016
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    Location: Puerto Maldonado Peru

    FullyElectricAM Junior Member

    I should also say, that this 5 day model, is not for high river, low river variables which alter the travel time dramatically. This is 5 day model is actually the 3 day model I hope to achieve. So I may very well have to double my batteries as I mentioned before. Giving me 100 tons of batteries on the boat, but that will definitely last me 5 days. I am at most at any point on the river 1 day between AC outlets. Almost all of the small towns have AC outlets and I can charge at any of them if I have to and pay to charge the boat by using plug in electric meters to monitor the cost.
     
  10. FullyElectricAM
    Joined: Feb 2016
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    Location: Puerto Maldonado Peru

    FullyElectricAM Junior Member

    The netting isnt fishing nets, its skimmer netting specially designed by my team and is already used to haul in trash. Im not going to get anything out of it but cleaning the trash out of the river, and that is enough justification for me to do it. It is a huge problem!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVnMBGXVVUI

    We currently catch lots of debris as well, though you are correct. Most of the debris are floating sticks. A 20 meter skimming net catches about 30% trash that is not biodegradable. Mostly plastic bags and bottles. The percentage is based on weight though, so that is a lot of trash because the trash weighs much less than the sticks soaked in water. But the sticks cause lots of damage to boats too!
     
    Last edited: Feb 28, 2016
  11. Waterwitch
    Joined: Oct 2012
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    Waterwitch Senior Member

    The article you quote is quite misleading as far as power for that car carrier gets from solar panels. It is 10 percent of the electrical needs when docked.
    The Auriga Leader's solar power capabilities produced as anticipated 0.05% of the ship's propulsion power and 1% of its electrical usage. This will contribute to lowering the ship's fuel usage by approximately 13 tons and its CO2 output by 40 tons.
    T
    he vessel, developed by Nippon Yusen K.K. and Nippon Oil Corp., is capable of generating 10% of the energy used while the ship is docked with its 328 solar panels on the top deck. Nippon Yusen has set a goal of halving its fuel consumption and carbon dioxide emissions by 2010.
     
  12. FullyElectricAM
    Joined: Feb 2016
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    Location: Puerto Maldonado Peru

    FullyElectricAM Junior Member

    This post is very helpful and I took my time in analyzing it again this morning. I like the idea of a leaner boat too. However please see the quoted post below as an example. 12v motors wont work obviously, I may have to go as high as 72v, but I think 48v is more likely. DC Motors with high enough torque and large enough rotating mass to turn a prop this size will be 36v or higher, and probably the 48v model is the best.

    This lowers the battery requirement, and brings me to 57 or so forklift batteries at 2188lbs each and a cost of 400 dollars each when bought as wholesale and put into a box from alibaba.com direct from Chinese markets that produce the batteries.

    Things in Peru are much less expensive than in the states, this is the reason I did not want to discuss pricing as part of this thread. Even if i bought brand name batteries from the US the price is only a little over 54000 dollars to buy and have the batteries shipped to my port in Peru. Transportation from there becomes more expensive and tricky without a trucking friend to help me out, but that is always a resource I can source too. My budget for the boat can go much lower depending on if and where I can source the batteries.

    Another example of why we shouldnt talk about pricing are the panels, here in Peru a brand new Solar panel that is 160W costs just over 400 soles, that is right now a 130ish dollars after paying fees. Originally when I came to Peru I was convinced I would have to buy broken panels at .50c a watt and rebuild them. Brand new panels are so cheap here, there is no reason to buy broken cells. Even the broken cell prices are only marginally cheaper than these 160w Monocrystaline High quality panels! Batteries here are very overpriced and expensive due to the weight of shipping though so I have to conserve there, in addition I have to consider battery management, fire control, spill control, ventilation, and security on the boat itself when considering batteries. If necessary I can buy other sealed batteries and lower the cost even further than the forklift batteries offered in the states. Especially when buying in bulk wholesale from a vendor in China!

    In short there are tons of ways to save money. The batteries could also be used instead of new but will take longer to procure. The panels could be broken if dealing with large bulk ordering and shipping batteries already, why not? The management system and motor controller will absolutely have to be new, but they are not nearly as expensive as the batteries themselves or limiting in the design of the hull. If my boat is under 150,000 dollars to build, It is still in my range to do so. But I will want to make it as cheap as possible to lower the time to crowdfund the campaign and use the donors I have instead of finding new donors over the next year. Build the paper boat first, get an idea of where we can cut costs, produce the media needed to crowdfund which will cost money too, and then you have an idea why we are getting way ahead of ourselves thinking about money at this stage.
     
  13. FullyElectricAM
    Joined: Feb 2016
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    Location: Puerto Maldonado Peru

    FullyElectricAM Junior Member

    I appreciate you pointing this out, however AC charging while docked still makes the model more efficient than using diesel. Also that is not including the other ways to generate electricity mentioned in the mission statement, thus the model I am using is effective.
     
  14. Stumble
    Joined: Oct 2008
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    Stumble Senior Member

    I was speaking of the voltage of the batteries not the engine. It doesn't matter what voltage the engines operate at, the amount of power pulled from the batteries stays the same. Engine voltage simply changes the way the batteries are hooked up and the size of the cables needed.

    Four 12v 120ah (usable) batteries can be connected as a 12v 480ah bank or a 48v 120ah bank with equal ease.

    The motor is going to use some # of kW, which is simply the voltage times the amps. If you double the voltage the amps are halved, and vice versus.


    You also need to look at the electrical supply you have available when plugged in at the dock to figure out how long it will take to recharge. A standard shore plug could take days to even get out of the bulk charging phase.
     

  15. FullyElectricAM
    Joined: Feb 2016
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    Location: Puerto Maldonado Peru

    FullyElectricAM Junior Member

    Changing the voltage of the battery bank though alters the weight necessary. I dont need to buy 12v batteries, they will weigh too much and be too large. I need to buy 48v batteries for propulsion, and step down the voltage for on board electrical needs. That is the point I was getting at. But seriously I appreciate that input.

    Also if I could get any help on the prop vs the hull of the ship by a link to specs online, or someone who knows of such things that would go a long way to determining an actual HP requirement for the boat. I still havent found anything on that front. HP/Torque numbers for these ships vary drastically, and I went to ask a local retired boat captain today, and he says the reason most captains dont know, is because their boat has been in operation longer than the captains have been alive. Most of the boats in operation were used in the Rubber Boom towns of Iquitos and built there in 1930! I asked them what happens when the diesel motor breaks and they have to replace it, and he said hes never heard of one of those motors not being able to be repaired.
     
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