Auxiliary Engine Maintenance

Technical Insights for Junior Officers

What is a Heat Engine?

A heat engine is a system that uses energy in the form of heat and transforms it into mechanical work, then exhausts the waste heat. This process often involves Waste Heat Recovery, where exhaust heat is harnessed for additional efficiency. It operates by bringing a working substance from a higher temperature state to a lower temperature state.

Essentially, it converts the flow of thermal energy into useful mechanical work by maintaining heat flow between a hot reservoir and a cold reservoir within the engine.

Working Substance
Figure 1: Thermodynamic working substance behavior

Working Principles of a Heat Engine

Three processes occur in every heat engine. The mechanical work is produced by converting thermal energy into mechanical energy. The heat engine firstly converts thermal energy into chemical energy [fuel], then mechanical work. By using the relationship between the operating temperatures of the engine, the efficiency can be obtained easily.

Examples: Steam in a steam engine, or air in a gas turbine.

WORKING SUBSTANCE

A working substance is a material often a fluid like a gas or liquid, that performs mechanical work in a thermodynamic system. By under going changes in temperature , pressure and volume as it absorbs heat and then release it converting thermal energy into useful work.(e.g Steam in a steam engine , air in a gas turbine) The most efficient heat engine cycle is the Carnot cycle, consisting of two isothermal processes and two adiabatic processes.

Thermodynamic Processes
Figure 2: P-V Diagrams for Thermodynamic Processes & Engine Cycles

Ideal Gas Cycles & Processes

Internal combustion engines operate based on fundamental thermodynamic processes. Understanding these is key to mastering the Otto, Diesel, and Dual Cycles.

Isobaric: Constant pressure W = PΔV
Isochoric: Constant volume W = 0
Isothermal: Constant temperature Q = W
Adiabatic: No heat transfer Q = 0

In the Diesel Cycle, heat addition is Isobaric, while in the Otto Cycle, it is Isochoric.

Section Summary

One of the important implications of the first law of thermodynamics is that machines can be harnessed to do work that humans previously did by hand or by external energy supplies such as running water or the heat of the Sun. A machine that uses heat transfer to do work is known as a heat engine. There are several simple processes, used by heat engines, that flow from the first law of thermodynamics. Among them are the isobaric, isochoric, isothermal and adiabatic processes. These processes differ from one another based on how they affect pressure , volume, temperature and heat transfer.

Within these engines, several key processes occur that flow directly from the First Law. These include Isobaric, Isochoric, Isothermal, and Adiabatic processes.

Key Takeaway: Each of these processes is unique in how it affects the core thermodynamic variables: Pressure, Volume, Temperature, and Heat Transfer. Mastering these relationships is the foundation of marine engineering efficiency.

Diesel Cycle P-V Diagram
Figure 3: Diesel Cycle P-V Diagram (Ideal Gas Cycle)

Ideal Gas Cycle

Internal combustion engine works mostly on once of the three cycle namely Otto cycle, Diesel cycle and Dual cycle.

Otto Cycle

Otto cycle is considered as the ideal cycle for petrol or spark ignition engine. In this cycle heat addition is at constant volume.

Diesel Cycle

Diesel cycle is considered as ideal cycle for diesel engine or compression ignition engine. In this cycle heat addition is at constant pressure.

NOTE: An isentropic process is a thermodynamics process in which the entropy of fluid or gas remains constant.

DUAL COMBUSTION ENGINE

It is an internal combustion four-stroke engine. It is called 'Dual' because combustion takes place in two parts: first at constant volume and second at constant pressure.

PRINCIPLE OF DUAL CYCLE

A dual cycle engine consists(ပါဝင်သည်) of four main processes: intake, compression, combustion and expansion. During intake, air is drawn into the cylinder through a valve. During compression, the piston moves up and compresses the air, rising its temperature and pressure. During combustion, fuel is injected into the cylinder at a constant pressure, igniting the air-fuel mixture and further increasing the temperature and pressure. During expansion, the piston moves down and converts the thermal energy into mechanical work, lowering the temperature and pressure. The exhaust valve then opens and the burned gases are released.

What is a cycle?

A cycle is a series of separate events which are essential for the efficient operation of an engine.

Essential events in a diesel engine’s cycle:

4-Stroke Marine Diesel Engine Cross Section
Figure 5: Detailed Cross-section of a Four-Stroke Trunk-Type Marine Diesel Engine.Gudgeon pin = Small End Bearing, Bottom end Bearing = Big End Bearing

4-STROKE MARINE DIESEL ENGINE

The four-stroke cycle is completed in four strokes of the piston, or two revolutions of the crankshaft (two cycles, one power). In order to operate this cycle, the engine requires a mechanism. A cross-section of a four-stroke cycle engine is shown in the diagram.

Engine Construction

The engine is made up of a trunk type piston which moves up and down in a cylinder which is covered at the top by a cylinder head. The fuel injector, through which fuel enters the cylinder, is located in the cylinder head. The inlet and exhaust valves are also housed in the cylinder head and held shut by springs (စပရိန်များဖြင့် ပိတ်ထားသည်)။

Connecting Mechanism

The piston is joined to the connecting rod by a gudgeon pin. The bottom end or big end of the connecting rod is joined to the crankpin which forms part of the crankshaft. With this assembly, the linear up and down movement of the piston is converted into rotary movement of the crankshaft.
ဤစုစည်းမှုဖြင့် piston ၏ မျဉ်းဖြောင့်အတိုင်း အပေါ်အောက် ရွေ့လျားမှုကို crankshaft ၏ လည်ပတ်ရွေ့လျားမှုအဖြစ်သို့ ပြောင်းလဲပေးသည်။

Trunk Piston Characteristics

The name “Trunk Piston” refers to the piston skirt or trunk. The purpose of the skirt or trunk in four-stroke cycle engines is to act in a similar manner to a crosshead. It takes the thrust caused by connecting-rod angularity (ထောင့်မှန်ကျမှု) and transmits it to the side of the cylinder liner, in the same way as the crosshead slipper transmits the thrust to the crosshead guide.

With such engines, which are termed trunk-piston engines, the engine height is considerably (သိသိသာသာ) reduced compared with that of a crosshead engine of similar power and speed. The engine-manufacturing costs are also reduced. It means of course that there is no separation between the crankcase and the liner and piston. This has its disadvantages, especially when considering the choice of lubricating oils when burning high sulphur residual fuels.

Reciprocating movement of the piston is converted into crankshaft motion. (Piston ၏ အပြန်အလှန် လှုပ်ရှားမှုသည် crankshaft ရွေ့လျားမှုအဖြစ်သို့ ပြောင်းလဲသွားသည်။)

Valves and Timing Mechanism

The crankshaft is arranged to drive through gears the camshaft, which either directly or through pushrods operates rocker arms which open the inlet and exhaust valves. The crankshaft is ‘timed’ to open the valves at the correct point in the cycle. The crankshaft is surrounded by the crankcase and the engine framework which supports the cylinders and houses the crankshaft bearings. The cylinder and cylinder head are arranged with water-cooling passages around them.

Indicator Diagram (MEK Exam Prep)

The diagrams indicating simultaneously (တပြိုင်နက်တည်း ညွှန်ပြသည်။) the pressure and the relative position of the piston in the cylinder are known as indicator diagrams.

A. These diagrams are taken for:

B. Taking indicator diagram procedure:

  1. Before taking the diagram, open indicator cock for a few firing to blow out the soot and combustion residues in the cock.
  2. Check whether the spring fitted on the indicator instrument will meet the peak pressure to be expected. (ညွှန်ပြကိရိယာတွင် တပ်ဆင်ထားသော စပရိန်သည် မျှော်လင့်ထားရမည့် အမြင့်ဆုံးဖိအားနှင့် ကိုက်ညီမှုရှိမရှိ စစ်ဆေးပါ။)
  3. Stretch diagram paper firmly over the drum.
  4. After drawing the atmospheric pressure line, hook the cord to indicator drive, open indicator cock, and take the power diagram and close the indicator cock.
  5. Remove the hook, turn the drum by hand to a place clear from the power diagram took compression pressure line with fuel cutoff.
  6. Having taken indicator diagrams from all cylinders, open the indicator instrument and clean all parts, especially the piston. After cleaning, apply high temperature grease on all parts.
  7. Do not allow the indicator instrument to become overheated by too many firings as it will affect the instrument’s accuracy.

C. Indicator cards (4) kinds:

1. Power card

In phase with piston movement, with “fuel on”, to determine indicated power. P.max (between atmospheric line and highest point), operational fault.

2. Draw card

90deg. Out of phase with piston movement, with “fuel on”, to determine: P.max, P.com, nature of expansion curve. To evaluate injection, ignition delay, fuel quality, combustion, loss of compression, expansion process, fuel pump timing and after burning.

3. Compression card

In phase and “fuel cut off”, to determine: Compression pressure and cylinder tightness.

4. Light spring card

In phase, using light spring, with “fuel on”, to determine: Pressure variation during exhaust and scavenging periods.

P.max = maximum combustion pressure (fuel on) | P.com = compression pressure (fuel on)


DRAW CARD ANALYSIS

1. Early Combustion

Causes:
  • a. High cetane (diesel) No.
  • b. Fuel pump plunger setting is high.
  • c. Early adjustment of fuel cam.
  • d. Low fuel valve setting pressure.

Note: Cetane no. Shows the ignition quality no.

Signs:
  • a. High P.max.
  • b. Expansion line is lower than normal.
  • c. Drop in exhaust temperature.
  • d. Fuel knocking.
  • e. Decrease in SFOC (specific fuel oil consumption).
  • f. High impact (ထိခိုက်မှု) load may occur on the bearings.

2. Late Combustion

Causes:
  • a. Low cetane (diesel) No.
  • b. Low setting of the fuel pump plunger.
  • c. Late adjustment of the camshaft.
  • d. High fuel injection setting pressure.
  • e. Worn out (ပျက်သွားတယ်။) fuel pump plunger and barrel.
Indications:
  • a. Low P.max.
  • b. Expansion line is higher than normal.
  • c. High exhaust temperature.
  • d. Over heat, it may cause difficulties in lubrication.
  • e. Increase in SFOC (specific fuel oil consumption).
  • f. Emitting black smoke.

INDICATED POWER CALCULATION

1. Finding Mean Effective Pressure (Pm)

Mean Pressure Diagram

Indicator Diagram တစ်ခုရဲ့ ဧရိယာ (Area) ကို သိရင် Mean Effective Pressure ကို အောက်ပါအတိုင်း ရှာနိုင်ပါတယ်။

Pm = (Area of Diagram / Length of Diagram) × Spring Constant

* ပုံတွင် ပြထားသည့်အတိုင်း Area (a) ကို Planimeter ဖြင့် တိုင်းတာပြီး Pm ကို တွက်ချက်ရယူသည်။

2. Indicated Power (IP) Formula

Indicated Power Formula

အင်ဂျင်ဆလင်ဒါအတွင်း ဖြစ်ပေါ်လာသော Power ကို တွက်ချက်ရန် အောက်ပါ Formula ကို အသုံးပြုသည်။

IP = (Pm × L × A × N × k) / 60 (kW)
  • Pm: Mean Effective Pressure (kN/m²)
  • L: Length of Stroke (m)
  • A: Area of Piston (m²)
  • N: RPM / 2 (For 4-Stroke Engine)
  • k: Number of Cylinders

3. Understanding P-V Diagram (Ideal vs Actual)

P-V Diagram

P-V Diagram သည် Engine Cycle တစ်ခုလုံး၏ ဖိအားနှင့် ထုထည်ပြောင်းလဲမှုကို ပြသသည်။

TDC: Top Dead Center (Minimum Volume) BDC: Bottom Dead Center (Maximum Volume) Swept Volume: TDC နှင့် BDC ကြားရှိ ထုထည်

POWER DIAGRAM & ENGINE PERFORMANCE

Power Diagram Stages (1-6)

The area within the diagram represents the work done per cycle:

  • Point (1): Fresh charge air is trapped as inlet/exhaust valves or ports close.
  • (1 to 2): Compression stroke; raising pressure and temperature.
  • (2 to 3): Fuel injection and ignition; rapid rise in pressure.
  • (3 to 4): Piston moves upwards; burning gases expand but combustion continues.
  • (4 to 5): Expansion without combustion; exhaust valves open, rapid pressure fall.
  • (5-6-1): Burnt gases are displaced by fresh air; trapped at (1) to start a new cycle.
Indicated Power (IP)

Actual power developed in the cylinder from high-pressure gas acting on the piston.

Brake Power (BP)

Power available at the output shaft. (BP < IP due to friction and heat losses).

Shaft Power (SP)

Output from reduction gears, couplings, or clutches connected to the crankshaft.

Delivered Power (DP)

Power delivered to the propeller (accounts for shaft bearing losses).

Propeller/Thrust Power

Actual power developed by propeller revolutions and pitch angle.

Effective Power (EP)

Power required to drive the ship against total resistance at service speed.

8-Way to Monitor & Measure Performance

  1. Measure peak pressure by mechanical peak pressure gauge
  2. Indicator card measurement
  3. Digital pressure monitoring (DPI)
  4. Intelligent combustion monitoring (ICM)
  5. Monitoring of engine control parameter
  6. Engine parameter
  7. Logbook monitoring
  8. Engine emission

Aspiration & Charging

Natural Aspiration

Engine draws in air by piston movement. Pressure is slightly lower (အနည်းငယ်နိမ့်) than atmospheric pressure.

Super-charger / Turbo-charger

Air supply takes place under pressure higher than atmospheric. Supplied by an exhaust gas turbo-blower.

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