.intermediate shaft bearing

Causes :

1. Faulty & loose connection of sensor.
2. Cooling water temp high, less flow of cooling water due to choked valve, pipe leakage, if SW cooled—may be SW O/B valve choked.
3. Wrong grade, Poor quality oil.
4. Insufficient LO, oil leakage, seal broken, sump level may low.
5. LO Contaminated with Bearing / foreign particles – Replenish the oil.
6. Failure of LO supply mechanism.
7. Ambient temp high.
8. Misalignment of the shaft due to Shaft & Hull distortion or Internal bearing wear down.
9. Shaft got misaligned due to bearing wear down (rare to happen, can be detected by taking crankshaft deflection after engine is stopped).
10. Others bearing wear down.
11. Deformation of tank top due to excessive heating of DB tk ( Bilge tk, Sludge tk).
12. Excessive vibration of shaft due to propeller damage.
13. Excessive vibration, ME running on critical speed for a long time – Avoid running in critical speed.
14. Hogging & Sagging effect.
15.  If ship listed – correct list.
16.  And also check trim condition – correct trim.

As a Chief Engr Actions : 

1. Check temperature locally and manually by temp gun.
2. Check the level, appearance of oil and cooling line.
3. Inform Master, Bridge if problem is real & Reduce RPM.
4. I will instruct to 3/E to Start another A/E & keep eye on Boiler steam pressure.
5. Engine should slow down automatically, if not, need to be slow down manually until it cool down.
6. Check Causes for running Hot & take necessary action.
7. I will instruct to 4/E engineer to check cooling water supply and arrange extra cooling means.
8. I will tell 2/E to renew oil by flushing with new oil, Check drain oil quality.
9. If ship is listed, inform Bridge to correct the list.
10. In extreme case, Ask bridge to stop engine if possible.
11. If not possible to stop engine, continue with minimum possible rpm and strictly monitor the temp of int. bearing and other parameters as well specially the crankcase condition (as misaligned shaft may damage main bearings and can lead to crankcase explosion).
12. In the meantime, investigate the cause of this high temp. if possible do troubleshoot.
13. When it is port, re-metal bearing & adjust chocks to give correct share of load. If overheating is frequent, check shaft alignment (Methods : Optical Sighting, Piano Wire, Gap & Sag Method, Jack-up Method, Strain Gauge Method), Check holding down bolt.