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Electric & Hybrid DrivesEngine & Turbine Management

Innovative engine technologies made by the HEINZMANN GroupHEINZMANN developments meet the environmental challenges in marine propulsion and control.

The reduction of operating costs and compliance with emissions legislation is of key interest to marine carriers. In addition cost transparency and reliability are also very significant.

The use of LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas) instead of diesel or heavy fuel oil can reduce fuel costs and also decrease emissions in order to meet current environmental requirements.

Highly sophisticated dual fuel solutions allow the conversion of diesel engines to gas operation with high diesel to gas conversion ratio and improved efficiency. Together with other supporting technologies, the online fuel consumption monitoring helps to keep the engine operating at its most efficient point.

With extended engine monitoring a high level of engine availability is ensured and damaging faults can be detected at an early stage. HEINZMANN offers comprehensive solutions for marine propulsion including engine control, monitoring and safety devices. This article is focused on dual fuel conversion as well as on fuel consumption monitoring and reporting for marine engines. In particular, dual fuel operation requires special attention to the fuel performance. The combination of these systems guarantees users the most economic engine operating solutions.

General view on dual fuel for marine application

There is a general trend towards the use of gas in mobile applications like ships. Using gas as fuel enables the stipulated emissions limits to be met comfortably. However, installing gas tanks and handling refuelling in ports will be a major problem. It will certainly not be possible to refuel with gas at every port.

For this reason, it is highly likely that dual fuel engines rather than pure gas engines will initially be widely used in shipping. Dual fuel essentially involves a diesel engine that can also be operated using gas. Diesel pilot injection is used for ignition. The main argument in favour of this kind of system is that the engine can still be operated with pure diesel if gas is not available.

For this reason, the engine manufacturer ABC (Anglo Belgian Corp.) and the system supplier HEINZMANN have been developing a special dual fuel engine for ships with direct propulsion. Both companies benefit from many years‘ experience with diesel engines in shipping. For this project, diesel engines optimised for dual fuel operation were used. These optimisations enable conversion rates of steady state 95 % to be achieved (95 % gas / 5 % diesel).

The key challenges for the engine management system are the variable speed/load and the fact that the torque/power output of the engine is not known. Maintaining a high conversion rate in dynamic operation calls for sophisticated control concepts. In addition, rapid switching functions back to 100 % diesel are used, for example to prevent misfires due to insufficient pilot injection.

Image 1: HEINZMANN Dual Fuel Application on ABC DZD Engine

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Electric & Hybrid DrivesEngine & Turbine Management

A gas metering control unit is used to control the gas mass flow rate. The gas flow rate provides a similar linear relationship to the power output as for the diesel level. This enables the diesel and gas power produced to be calculated and the engine to be protected against overload.

Development of a special dual fuel engine for directly powered ships

A specially optimised engine was used for this dual fuel project in the marine sector. This engine has been successfully used for a long time as a dual fuel engine for stationary generator applications. For use in the marine sector, the concept has been significantly revised and adapted to reflect the ambient conditions.

The diesel side is powered by a mechanical injection system which is connected to an electric actuator. Figure 2 provides a schematic view of the system.

In dual fuel mode, this diesel controller is still responsible for the actual speed/power control. An additional control loop then controls the optimum gas quantity. This enables the diesel injection system to respond dynamically to rapid fluctuations or step changes. If the load is disconnected, the engine can quickly be switched back to pure diesel operation. This prevents the diesel level from falling below the minimum required for combustion and thus causing misfires.

A key factor for dual fuel use is protecting the engine against overload. In a fully optimised and utilised system, both the diesel injection system and the gas system (with a small diesel proportion as pilot fuel) can handle almost the entire engine load. When combined, the engine can easily be overloaded. In generator applications, the load signal from the generator management system is then used as a limit. However, in directly powered ships, there is no such torque/load signal. Therefore, the dual fuel control unit determines the power generated by the diesel and gas fuels dynamically during operation. To calculate the power generated by the diesel fuel, the power depending on fill level and speed is recorded on the test bench and plotted in a characteristic map.

To record the power generated by the gas, a gas flow metering unit is used, which uses a differential pressure measurement to determine the gas flow and can control it using a throttle valve. The gas data (density and calorific value) can be used to calculate the gas power from the gas flow. The dual fuel controller transmits this data along with a gas power setpoint.

The total power that the engine delivers at the crankshaft is calculated from the actual gas power and the diesel power.

As the gas quality will fluctuate according to the gas types in the different ports, a facility has been provided for specifying the gas quality using the visualisation unit. A conceivable scenario would be that an engineer receives a measuring report for the gas when refuelling and has to enter the corresponding quality. Otherwise, a corresponding safety factor would have to be maintained.

Reduction of emissions by dual fuel technology

Emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx) are reduced. Here, dual fuel operation has a clear advantage over pure diesel operation. One of the other major advantages is the reduction in the greenhouse gas (CO2) caused by the design principle. The diesel process produces soot particles and these are significantly reduced. Additional possibility for optimisation of

Image 2: Dual Fuel System Overview

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Electric & Hybrid DrivesEngine & Turbine Management

the emissions is an optimised gas/air mixture. Optimising the ignition point in dual fuel mode would be another option. This would require a common rail system or an electronic pump pipe nozzle (E-PPN) system. The E-PPN system that is currently in development would be an economical alternative, which could also be retrofitted.

Fuel Performance System FuelMACS to meet fuel efficiency requirements on ships

In July 2011, IMO’s Commitee MEPC decided to change the MARPOL Convention, Appendix VI to include efficiency requirements (EEDI – Energy Efficiency Design Index) on new ships. For existing ships the owners have to develop a plan for improving efficiency: SEEMP (Ship Energy Efficiency Management Plan).

To meet these requirements, Heinzmann Data Process AS has developed fuel consumption monitoring as a part of their maritime alarm and monitoring system SeaMACS. The functions developed are designated as FuelMACS.

FuelMACS technology

The FuelMACS system was developed as an integrated part of the Heinzmann Data Process AS’ complete Marine Automation System SeaMACS. The SeaMACS system is very flexible and scalable, and can be used on all sizes and typed of vessels – from the smallest up to the largest amount of I/O known on a vessel.

This means that the FuelMACS system is delivered in 2 different versions:

1. As an integrated part of a complete SeaMACS Marine Automation System 2. As a stand-alone version

Processing, calculation and presentation of data in the FuelMACS system is performed on a computer based operator station. For a stand-alone FuelMACS system this is done on a dedicated computer located where suitable (i.e. engine control room, bridge).

Monitoring of necessary data is performed by distributed I/O modules located as close to the process as possible. The I/O modules are connected to the computer with a data communication bus (i.e. Ethernet). HEINZMANN’s dual fuel applications can easily be integrated with the FuelMACS in order to monitor both gas and diesel consumption.

The system can also be extended by separate displays showing selected fuel performance indicators. This can be an option if the computer is located in the engine control room but the operators at the bridge also need instant data presented.

FuelMACS functions

To ensure flexibility, regarding the practical use and implementation of FuelMACS, the software is modularised in such a way that the system is easy to adapt to the various needs of different shipowners, and it can also be extended/modified over the lifetime of the vessel.

Image 3: Fuel Performance System FuelMacs

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Electric & Hybrid DrivesEngine & Turbine Management

The modularisation of the functions is built up according to what kind of performance indicators the shipowner wants and what kind of instrumentation is needed. FuelMACS currently has 4 main function blocks:

1. Fuel consumption: This option measures the fuel consumption on each consumer (engine), and calculates parameters/indexes as: accumulated fuel consumption, accumulated emissions and costs over time. FuelMACS is designed to monitor different types of fuel, and can easily be integrated with HEINZMANN duel fuel applications.

2. Vessel performance: By implementing measurement of the ship speed in addition to the above, performance relative to travelled distance can be calculated, such as: fuel consumption per nautical mile, EEOI, etc.

3. Engine performance: If the produced power of the different engines/consumers are measured, fuel performance indicators will be calculated relative to the produced power; such as specific fuel consumption, load utilisation, etc.

4. Hull performance: Measurement of propulsion power compared to the vessels speed enables calculation of performance indicators that, if trended over a long time, will indicate if the hull resistance is increasing.

In order to support the shipowners’ SEEMP, the data analysis and longtime trending have to be performed on shore. FuelMACS will export data over the shipowners WAN. The staff on-shore will then be able to perform long-term trending and analysis of each vessel’s behaviour over time, and will also be able to perform comparison between different vessels. The shipowner will then see the effect of the measures he implements in order to reduce fuel consumption.

Conclusion

Combining dual fuel technology and the monitoring of fuel performance on vessels, the HEINZMANN Group’s innovations will meet future environmental challenges with regard to the reduction of gas and diesel consumption and hence emissions.

In addition to the presented engine control systems HEINZMANN offers a comprehensive range of further control units on a modular basis and adapted to any engine size and application. Seamless integration of functional units into a cost-efficient turnkey vessel control package for an economic, low emission, easy to use and future proof solution.

About HEINZMANN

The HEINZMANN Group was founded in 1897 and is growing continuously. It is headquartered in Schönau, Germany.

In the field of engine and turbine management, HEINZMANN ranks among the leading suppliers worldwide. The company’s product range includes components and system solutions for an optimised management of diesel, gas and dual fuel engines and gas, steam and hydro turbines. HEINZMANN has a suitable system and control solution for every application – marine drives, locomotive control systems, construction machines, agricultural vehicles or gensets.

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Contact:Martina Denhard-Aisenpreis

Heinzmann GmbH & Co. KGAm Haselbach 1D-79677 Schönau/GermanyPhone: +49 7673 8208 - 0Fax: +49 7673 8208 - 188 Email: info@heinzmann.de

www.heinzmann.com