Photo: Alexander Koryakov / Kommersant

Aboard the icebreaker had a short and failed propeller motor.

As reported by “Kommersant”, the incident occurred on 4 February. Triggering of the protection system and emergency shutdown of the frequency Converter happened during commissioning of the system of electric power supply by frequency Converter for propeller motor (GAD). An unsuccessful commissioning works resulted in damage to the winding GAD.

As said “Kommersant” a source in the shipbuilding industry, the situation is complicated: a broken propeller, the motor are a major cause of failure of the vessel, which had previously intended to enter into operation in early summer. The surrender of an icebreaker with a high probability will have to move.

The main task for today experts believe the root cause of failure, and — subject to availability — correction of damage to the engine. If you need to extract the DEG will have to cut the hull that will require a lot of time and effort.

The worst of all scenarios another source considers the assumption of system errors in the draft of the propeller of the motor, which will require a significant adjustment time: the cycle time GAD about a year.

Arktika — head nuclear-powered icebreakers type LK-60Я (project 22220). The ship was laid down on 5 November 2013 and launched on 16 June 2016. In the fall of 2016 to put the reactors, and at the end of last August, the readiness of the icebreaker was of 87.7%.

The icebreaker has two nuclear power units with reactors of RHYTHM 200 thermal capacity of 175 MW each. Thanks to a couple from a reactor driven steam turbine generators, having a capacity of 36 MW each. Propeller fixed pitch propellers are driven by electric motors.

The main task of the icebreaker service the Northern sea route and carrying out expeditions in the Arctic. The use of variable precipitation allows efficient use of the ship both at depth and in shallow water. Thanks to this feature, the project 22220 can replace the icebreaker “Arktika” and the ship of the type “Taimyr”. Just needs to build five icebreakers of type LK-60Я.