The Worlds Biggest Combustion Engine.

[M.D. Holloway]

The Worlds Biggest Combustion Engine. (Sorry if its a repost)

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The worlds biggest engine is the Wartsila-Sulzer RTA96-C. It is a turbo charged two stroke diesel engine and it is the most powerful and efficient low revolution engine in the world today. The Wartsila-Sulser is manufactured by the Aioi Works in Japan and is part of Japans Diesel United Ltd engine manufacturers. Below is an 89 foot long 44 foot wide 12 cylinder engine, literally as big as a house! What I find confusing is why they haven't actually built the ship around the engine? How they actually get the 2000 ton engine out of the plant and moreover install an engine of this size into a ship makes the mind boggle.






These large engines are designed to power the worlds super oil tankers and large container ships. They are built to the ship owners preferences. They usually request an engine construction of a single unit and single propeller design for ease of maintenance, and not surprisingly any later troubleshooting. A single unit and single screw design has also proved over time to have a longer life span than double or even quad screws.






These engines are built in 6, 8, 10, 12 and 14 cylinder configurations. All the engines are straight or 'inline'. The diameter of each cylinder is 3 foot 2 inches with a stroke of 8 foot 2 inches. The 12 cylinder version weighs in at 2000 metric tons and delivers 90,000 Horse Power at 100 Revs per minute, with best fuel economy at 53,244 HP at 90 Rpm. When I mention economy, the 14 cylinder engine for example with a displacement of 25,480 Liters ( 1.56 million cubic inches ) burns up 1,660 gallons of crude ('bunker') oil every hour.

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The Mathematical calculation: 1,660 gallons/per hour = 39.5 barrels of crude oil/used per hour = $2,844. These figures are worked out from the basis of crude oil @ $72 a barrel*. $2,844 every hour the engine runs or 27.6 Gallons which is $46.00 every minute or 76 cents a second! That is of course if the ships buy oil at trade price..if not then these figures are the absolute minimum. ( * at time of publishing )

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In the image below a wo rker at the plant is finalizing work on the cylinder block. This image shows the piston sleeves. The worker could quite easily have a nap inside one of the bores and no one would notice!







Below are the pistons that will soon be fitted into the engine. Unlike normal car sized pistons these 3 foot diameter pistons incorporate lots of holes and it is through these holes that oil is injected through valves to keep all the working parts at a maximum low wear tolerance. Despite the colossal amounts of power output produced by these engines, surprisingly low wear rates have actually been recorded. Cylinder liner wear for example is only about 0.03 mm down for every 1000 hours of engine use. It must be remembered here that these engines work at about 20 times slower than a normal 2.0 Liter car engine and this is a major contributor to the life of the engine.


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The image below depicts the 300 ton crankshaft of the 10 cylinder engine. You may notice here that there are steps on the wall of the casing to climb down into the engines sump!


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In the image below the pistons shell bearings are being fitted into the engine block. They are lowered into place by a crane and guided in by two workers and a supervisor. They keep all surfaces of the engine clean at this stage as any grit or dirt could later add wear to the engine or worse destroy it, so the workers are wearing special cloth overshoes so as not to leave any abrasions on the fine working surfaces. Also you may notice that sheeting is covering the rest of the engines crankcase bearing housing to keep the dust off. These engines cost many millions upon millions of dollars; in fact, more than the ship itself that they are installed into.


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100,000 HP was actually achieved on a test bed in the workshop with the 14 cylinder model, running the engine flat out at just under 102 RPM. 102 Rpm may sound slow compared to a normal sized car engine that operates at about 2-4000 rpm, but when an engine is as big as this then fast engine revolutions are made obsolete by the sheer power output.

[sailchef]

I just had to bump this to the top.

[porsche4life]

Glad you did... WOW!

[Oh Haha]

very cool.
I think Juan Ruiz from the Turbo side of Pelican works on these babies.

[azasadny]

Wow!!

[Racerbvd]

Will it fit in a 914

[legion]

Originally Posted by Racerbvd

Will it fit in a 914

No, the engine bay is too small. It will fit in a 928 though...

[dheinz]

[sammyg2]

I've actually rebuilt stuff like that.
Hamilton Mann, 8 cylinder diesel, 110 feet long and three stories tall. 3' bore, 2' stroke.
187 rpm. Fired above and below the piston (double acting) and the pistons and rods were water cooled.

[M.D. Holloway]

Well Sorted Out!

[Tim Walsh]

Originally Posted by legion

No, the engine bay is too small. It will fit in a 928 though...

I believe the phrase you're looking for is. No the 928 is too big to fit in a cylinder, but the 914 will.

[sailchef]

dheinz,

what are we looking at there?

A single piston? Any idea where it came from.

[john70t]

Considering all the force comes from a flame front backed by irregular propagation, I wonder why they use the same ICE design as automotives. I
would guess a duel-piston, a tubulence head(Design To Improve Turbulence In Combustion Chambers), a hybrid, stirling, or even a multitude of smaller engines would be easier to install/maintain and be more efficient.

A container ship is massive and represents a relatively consistent moving mass. The cavitations and fluxuations in water current and pressure over the drive is always changing.
The maritime industry is finally figuring out that propellors work better when they have flexability, variable pitch, and better surfaces(Whale-inspired bumps improve efficiency of ocean turbine blades) to actually conform to the water instead of spinning foam. Duh.

A drivetrain that can vary fuel requirements with the load will work better as well.
Mabye a massive crank/flywheel will, I don't know.

[sammyg2]

Here's more on the engines I helped rebuild:


There were 5 of them, story I heard was we got them from Germany as spoils of WWII. They were moth-balled in the 50's or 60's and we were contracted to bring them back to life in the mid 80's.

Huell did a show on them years ago:

Visiting...With Huell Howser #1711 - VERNON LIGHT AND POWER UPDATE
Join Huell as he updates this 1997 episode which looks at the Vernon Light and Power Plant, which has provided the city of Vernon with power for over 60 years. This beautiful Art Deco building and it's five huge diesel motors rumble back to life after a long shutdown.

Click to Purchase this DVD
or call 1-800-266-5727

[mikehinton]

Hope they aren't using Dilavar head studs!!

[island911]

hmmm, I'm thinking that's not "The Worlds Biggest Combustion Engine." ...maybe, The Worlds Biggest Internal Combustion Engine.

iirc - The space shuttle burns somewhere around 23,000 lbs of fuel -per Second-
(~3,000lbs/s main, and ~10k_lbs/s for each solid booster.)

Now that's some big combustion.

[M.D. Holloway]

Hmm, the Shuttle engine would be more powerful but this has a bigger footprint.

[cgarr]

How about the smallest:



Lab Notes: Research from the Berkeley College of Engineering

[island911]

Originally Posted by LubeMaster77

Hmm, the Shuttle engine would be more powerful but this has a bigger footprint.

Not at lift off.