Feature 1 | DIESEl TECHnOlOGy
Herculean effort to raise emission standards
Finnish and Danish engine manufacturers Wärtsilä and MAN have joined forces in a long term project that should reduce emissions from marine diesels substantially. Te HERCULEAN series of projects will end with HERCULES C, which began in January and aims to bring the project to a successful conclusion.
I n 2002 the European engine
manufacturers MAN and Wärtsilä decided to enter into a joint project
that would look at substantially reducing emissions
from marine diesels. Part
funded by the EC and Swiss Government the Hercules series of projects was born. Hercules itself is an acronym that
stands for High-efficiency Engine R&D on Combustion with Ultra-low Emissions for Ships. In 2004 some 42 partners from industry and academia joined with the engine manufacturers to look for what they called “breakthrough” technology. That technology is nearing fruition
with the commencement of HERCULES C in January this year. Following the successful conclusion to HERCULES A and B, HERCULES C is now working towards three major objectives of achieving substantial reductions in fuel consumption, reducing emissions to “near zero” and maintaining the technical performance of an engine throughout its operational life. HERCULES C partners, led by the
co-ordinator Nikolaos Kyrtatos, aim to achieve the first target through developments in fuel
injection and
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combustion and through the ship energy management systems. The second objective will be achieved through the further development and integration of technologies developed in previous HERCULES projects, including Exhaust Gas Recirculation (EGR) and Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) technology. And the third objective will be achieved through the introduction of advanced materials, measuring and sensor equipment and through the improved “controllability and availability of marine power plants,” say the partners. Improvements to engine technology brought
about through the
Hercules project coordinator Nikolaos P. Kyrtatos professor and director of the Laboratory of Marine Engineering at the School of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering of the National Technical University of Athens, Greece.
HERCULES B results:
1. NOx (Measures are non-additive) • 50% reduction with Exhaust Gas Recirculation (EGR) • 90% reduction with gas after treatment via SCR – Selective Catalytic Reduction
2. CO2 / fuel consumption (Measures are additive)
• 10% with Waste Heat Recovery • 1% with Advanced Control • 0.5% with reduced engine friction • 3% with ship-engine overall optimisation during voyage
3. In addition to the above results already achieved, the developments in Extreme parameter engines and turbo-charging, will lead to an additional 2% reduction in CO2
/ fuel consumption in future (2020) engines with higher operating parameters.
developments achieved in the previous HERCULES phases. HERCULES A
had a total funding of €33 million (US$43.8 million) and it identified the
The Naval Architect March 2012
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