Manufacturers guidance

Champion Compressors acknowledges that a ship’s engineer is suitably qualified to carry out the various tasks involved in testing the shutdown systems on these types of compressors. However, the testing of this type of equipment has its challenges because of the varying skill levels of operators across our customer base. Therefore, Champion Compressors have worked to design fail-safe protective systems.

The new type temperature probe is a 4 - 20 Ma transducer which is continually monitored by the compressor control system. The control system will immediately shut down the compressor if the probe fails. Today’s compressors are also fitted with a secondary temperature probe. This acts as a further protection if the temperature rises above the set point of the primary shut down device. This probe is situated in the minimum pressure valve on top of the separator and it will shut the machine down when an increase in separator temperature occurs or there is a flash fire in the separator. Today’s Champion Compressor manuals also state that compressor protective systems should be checked every 6000 hours. The compressor fitted on board River Embley as a replacement for the Sullair compressor that was damaged in the fire and is fitted with all the protection systems described above.

The ATSB is satisfied that the response from Champion Compressors adequately addresses this safety issue.