2nd Class Motor Examination Questions

March 2004 Question 9.

a. Describe THREE methods of utilising the main engine waste
heat. (12)
b. Describe ways of using energy from the main engine other than
for main propulsion. (4)

a.

1. Turbo Charging
2. Exhaust Gas Economiser

3. Fresh Water Generator

Turbocharging uses energy in the exhaust gas, including heat energy, to

drive a turbine wheel which in turn drives a compressor to pressurize the
air used in scavenging the engine cylinders and to provide the mass of
oxygen required for the following combustion cycle. The efficiency of
the process can easily be seen by noting the drop in temperature of the
exhaust gas across the turbine. About 35% of the energy supplied by the
fuel is lost in the exhaust gas, turbocharging reclaims 7% and has helped
in boosting the efficiency of the modern diesel engine to around 50%.

The exhaust gas economiser is situated in the uptake and is a heat

exchanger which consists of a row of tube banks circulated by feedwater
over which the exhaust gases flow. The tube banks can be arranged to
provide feed heating, steam generation and superheating. A boiler drum
is necessary for steam separation to take place, and it is normal to use the
drum of an auxiliary boiler. Provision is made for by passing the
economiser by the use of dampers during stand by and for steam
production control, and the system will also be fitted with a method of
dumping excess steam to a condenser and a safety valve. Although
designers have attempted to regain a maximum amount of waste heat by
this method, care must be taken not to reduce the velocity of the exhaust
gas by too much (soot deposits and risk of fire) or to cool the gas below
its dewpoint of approx 140° (acid corrosion)

The fresh water generator uses the heat energy carried away in the jacket
cooling water. The cooling water leaves the engine at approximately 78 -
80°. The Fresh water generator, which can be either a flash or boiling
evaporator, operates under a vacuum where the water supplied boils at
about 60°. The cooling water treatment used in the jacket water must be
 non toxic in case of contamination of the raw water being supplied for
evaporation.

b.

Power from the engine can be utilised to drive a shaft alternator. This
can be a constant speed device often driven through a speed up gear box
and clutch arrangement, or a variable speed device as used in modern 2
stroke slow speed engines which employs thyrister controls to maintain
voltage and frequency. Usually they cannot be run loadsharing with the
auxiliary generators except during synchronisation.

Power is also used to drive engine driven pumps. Some engines have
Lub oil and cooling water pumps driven from the main engine. Electrical
standby pumps are usually fitted which can run instead of the engine
driven pumps, if not, a lub oil booster pump must be fitted for start up
and shut down. Most engines utilising cylinder lubrication will have
engine driven cylinder LO pumps.

Before turbocharging became popular, two stroke engines were fitted

with engine driven Rootes Blowers or reciprocating scavenge pumps
which were methods of supplying low pressure high volume compressed
air. 2 stroke crosshead engines used to (and some still do) utilise under
piston scavenging where the underside of the piston is used to boost the
pressure of the scavenge air.

It must be remembered that any energy used in these power take offs
will mean that the energy used to turn the propeller will be reduced by
the same amount.