The purpose of this bulletin is to set forth guidelines, practices, and allowances suitable for use in preliminary stages of the design of marine diesel power plants for the propulsion of typical merchant ships. The bulletin is intended to aid the designer in the use of engine manufacturers' performance data and to report plant design practices. The earlier edition of this bulletin (Marine Diesel Power Plant Performance Practices, 1975) generalized performance data for the ranges of engine types then available.
The rapid evolution of diesel engine design in recent years, leading to engines whose performance data are frequently very different from their predecessors, coupled with the ready availability of performance data published by the engine manufacturer, renders this approach both less reliable and less necessary. Nevertheless, although some generalized data are included in the bulletin, in very early design stages when a particular engine design has not yet been selected, better results are likely if data extracted from current specifications for an engine of the general type most likely to be fitted, can be used. The scope of this bulletin is generally limited to addressing diesel propulsion plants with main engines of the low-speed, crosshead type, and trunk piston engines with outputs as low as 100 bkW (brake kilowatts) per cylinder at speeds up to about 1200 RPM. In attempting to generalize data, uncommon engine types and those not in current production have not generally been included, For the most part, only turbocharged engines have been considered.