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Model for the propulsion fuel consumption of an aircraft carrier. Master's thesis

Technical Report ·
OSTI ID:5569641

Speed and propulsion fuel consumption characteristics of United States aircraft carriers are modeled to determine how unpredictabilities in operational, engineering, and wartime environments affect the endurance capability of the ship. Research into the characteristics of steam propulsion plants on ships show that variability may exist in the amount of propulsion fuel required to support ship operation for a given period of time. Sources of this variability include the nonlinear transformation of operational data into fuel logistics data, the nearly deterministic engine reacting to inputs from a stochastic environment, and the effects of increased engine wear and ship's crew fatigue on engine performance. Implementations of this variation in a simulation indicate that conventional estimation techniques for fuel consumption may seriously overestimate the endurance capability if the aircraft carriers. The simulation results show that the distribution of endurance time resembles a normal distribution, with the estimated mean decreasing variance increasing as unpredictabilities in various environments are considered.

Research Organization:
Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA (United States)
OSTI ID:
5569641
Report Number(s):
AD-A-231847/5/XAB
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English