Shipping companies sometimes order powerful mechanisms such as supertankers and container ships. For them, more and more powerful installations are needed, which include (and occupies a crucial place) motor. The most powerful engine in the world today is produced in Finland, in a company called Wartsila. This is a diesel internal combustion unit , the power of which is up to 100,000 kW.
About company
Wartsila is one of the largest record-breaking marine engine manufacturing companies. Since the 90s of the last century, she began the development of linear marine engines, called Wartsila-Sulzer-RTA96-C. It is the two-stroke and most powerful engine in the world.
Some models of the line have a similar design. The difference is the number of cylinders. The customer can choose the option of the unit with the presence of 6 to 14 cylinders.
Cylinders and their quantity
To understand the grandeur of the structure, one can imagine that the diameter of the cylinder alone is 960 millimeters, and the piston stroke is 2.5 meters. As for the working volume of the part, it has 1820 liters. More than 100 container ships are equipped with such units, on which from 8 to 20 cylinders are installed. Such vessels, capable of carrying cargo up to 10,000 tons, can safely reach speeds above 46 kilometers per hour.
For the first time, this most powerful engine in the world, with 11 cylinders, was built in 1997. The manufacturer became the Japanese Diesel United. And after 5 years in Finland they announced that it is possible to produce a unit with 14 cylinders. It is this motor that remains a record today.
The most powerful engine in the world
This model has 108 920 horsepower. The working volume of the generator reaches 25,480 liters.
At first glance, a low liter capacity may seem strange: for 1 liter it is approximately 4.3 "horses". If you take the world's most powerful engine in a car, you will find that designers learned to get much higher than 100 horsepower in it. But in the case of the ship's unit, such a low indicator was chosen for a reason. The engine works slowly here - at maximum power, the shaft rotation speed is only 102 rpm (for comparison: from 3000 to 5000 rpm on automobile diesels). Due to this, good gas exchange is achieved in marine diesel. And if you add to this also a low piston speed, you get a very good coefficient of performance.
In any mode, specific fuel consumption varies from 118 to 126 grams per “horse” per hour. This is more than two times lower than passenger cars.
Comparing with automobile units, it should be added that ships use heavy marine diesel fuel, which has a significantly lower energy content.
So, the weight of the 14-cylinder unit is 2300 tons, excluding various technical fluids. The crankshaft alone weighs approximately 300 tons. In length, this best diesel engine reaches a mark of 26.7 meters, and in height - up to 13.2 meters.
Each cylinder has a huge valve. 3 more similar small-sized parts, which play the role of nozzles in automobile units, are used to inject fuel into the cylinder.
The valve is an outlet. Exhaust gases from it are sent to the collector, and then to the turbochargers. The latter drive air toward the windows cut out at the bottom of the cylinder, which open when the piston is at bottom dead center.
The force from the piston to the crankshaft is transmitted using a crosshead device, which increases the operation of the diesel engine.
The main materials from which the marine engine parts are made are all the same cast iron and steel.
Prospects
Meanwhile, designers do not stop at their already impressive results. Apparently, for them the answer to the question of which engine is better is obvious. The one to be created. Rumors are already emerging about the development of an 18-cylinder diesel for ships.
In the meantime, you can summarize the most impressive features of the 14-cylinder version of the engine:
- weight excluding fuels and lubricants is 2300 tons;
- unit length - 27 meters;
- height - 13.4 meters;
- the highest power achieved at 102 rpm - 108 920 horsepower;
- fuel consumption - over 6283 liters in one hour of operation.