Details:

Creators:
Langfitt, Quinn ; Haselbach, Liv
Langfitt, Quinn ; Haselbach, Liv Less -
Corporate Creators:
Washington State University. Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Corporate Contributors:
United States. Dept. of Transportation. Research and Innovative Technology Administration
Subject/TRT Terms:
[+]
Alternatives Analysis Environmental Impacts Ferries Life Cycle Analysis Lubricating Oils Oil Filters Waste Disposal
Publication/ Report Number:
2013-S-WSU-0044
Resource Type:
Tech Report
Geographical Coverage:
Washington
Corporate Publisher:
Pacific Northwest Transportation Consortium
Abstract:
Washington State Ferries (WSF) has proposed an alternative of the propulsion engine lubricating oil (lube oil) filtration systems on

some vessels in their fleet. Currently, WSF uses disposable cartridge filters for oil filtration on most vessels. Self-cleaning oil filters could be

installed which would eliminate the need for disposable filter cartridge changes and might raise the particle removal efficiency. WSF began with

a pilot installation on one of two engines on the M/V Chetzemoka in early 2014 and is interested in utilizing a three pronged perspective in their

decision making on whether to install more of these filters in their fleet, considering operational performance, cost savings, and potential

environmental benefits. These three perspectives are the focus of this research endeavor, with operational performance considered through lube

oil analysis of samples taken from the M/V Chetzemoka, potential cost savings through a life cycle cost analysis (LCCA), and potential

environmental impacts through a life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology. This report covers the first stage of this research effort: a background

on lube oil analysis, a rough order of magnitude life cycle cost analysis of lube oil and the filtration alternatives, and an overview of environmental

impacts of lube oil and some disposal methods through life cycle assessment methodologies. The preliminary LCCA shows that for a retrofit

vessel such as the M/V Chetzemoka, cost savings would likely be achieved by installation of a self-cleaning filtration system, considering a 50

year life cycle. These savings would be even greater for installation on a new vessel. The environmental impact data assembled and modeled

herein gives WSF a simple tool for approximating environmental impacts from an LCA perspective separately for acquisition and disposal by

distillation. It can be applied directly to the filter problem, or in other capacities when oil use and disposal volume changes are involved. For the

acquisition of lube oil, the most significant impact category with respect to US daily normalization per capita is Human Health Non-Cancer. For

disposal through distillation to other products, the benefits gained from offsetting these products are always higher than the impacts of the disposal

process. Future work is ongoing to gather more information on the oil analyses with the self-cleaning oil filter over extended periods. With this

additional information, the work herein will be updated. For the environmental analysis, future work might relate the gallon functional unit to

different functional units relevant to WSF operations such as passenger/vehicle capacity, etc. Additional future research could be to expand the

analyses to consider other vessels in the fleet.


Format:
PDF
Funding:
DTRT12-UTC10
Collection(s):
US Transportation Collection University Transportation Centers
Main Document Checksum:
[+]
urn:sha256:8ea65a7cc37543ee8fcbead169962238df0c6e097816fce7457c48053c4cfc07
Download URL:
https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/29415/dot_29415_DS1.pdf
File Type:

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