GE Powers Canada’s New Combat Ships
GE Aviation’s marine gas turbines are the ideal solution for the Royal Canadian Navy’s next generation surface combatant program, GE Marine said Thursday at the CANSEC 2018 trade exhibition.
“GE’s LM2500 family of engines are used by the Royal Canadian Navy and 34 other navies worldwide, setting the benchmark for reliability. The global fleet of GE gas turbines has logged over 15 million operating hours in the marine environment and another 90 million in industrial applications,” said Brien Bolsinger, GE’s Vice President, Marine Operations, Cincinnati, Ohio. “The 24 LM2500 marine gas turbines used by the Royal Canadian Navy propel their Halifax-class frigates. All the while, GE supports these gas turbines with a customized in-country engine service program. The LM2500 gas turbine family of engines are dependable and a low risk solution for Canada’s next generation surface combatant program,” he added.
GE’s suite of six propulsion gas turbines can meet any mission profile with power options from 4.6 megawatts to 52.7 MW: LM500 (4.6 MW), base LM2500 (25.1 MW), LM2500+ (30.2 MW) and LM2500+G4 (35.3 MW), as well as the LM6000PC (46.1 MW) and LM6000PG (52.7 MW) gas turbines.
Currently, there are two battle-ready designs being offered for the new Canadian surface combatant—built by the world’s leading shipyards—that are powered by GE LM2500 gas turbines:
- Spanish Navy’s F105 frigate Cristobal Colon built by Navantia (LM2500 base model)
- Alion is offering the Dutch De Zeven Provincien-class frigate (LM2500 base model)
Several other recent surface combatant programs from the world’s leading navies that use or will employ LM2500 family marine gas turbines include the Royal Australian Navy Hobart-class Air Warfare Destroyers, a design developed and applied by Navantia of Spain for the Spanish Navy’s F100 frigate program; the Italian Navy’s new Pattugliatori Polivalenti d’Altura multipurpose offshore patrol ships; and the FREMM frigates for the Italian and French navies.
For 17 years and counting, GE has provided maintenance and logistic support services for the Royal Canadian Navy’s LM2500 gas turbine fleet under a contract with Public Services and Procurement Canada. The contract provides the Royal Canadian Navy with many benefits, most notably the impressive availability of its LM2500 fleet over the 17 years of the GE contract, which averaged 99.9 percent.
This agreement includes onsite technical support 24-hours-a-day, 7-days-a-week, as well as:
- Repair, overhaul and engineering support
- Parts warehousing and inventory management (including spare engines, supply of spare parts and replenishment of inventory)
- Field service representative support (home port and deployed)
- Support of Royal Canadian Navy naval engineering school training curriculum for on-engine and equipment maintenance
- Operational level maintenance
- Configuration management
- Supply and distribution of technical manuals