Diesel Engines

I am not suggesting each farm pony up the cash. In the EU, the various governments chip in, and usually the farmer is covering 1/4 to 1/3 the cost

A similar program here would provide many benefits: reduction in nitrogen offsite, reduction in odor complaints from large-scale farms, net positive electricity back into grid, etc etc

When rural America and rural Canada were first hooked up to the electric grid, that was a massive publicly-funded undertaking. I don't think anybody now questions or doubts the efficacy of that old program, which still exists in some form, such as the RUS administered under the USDA

Which is ironic considering those very agencies are the ones to publicly raise a stink - pardon the pun - about the issue of manure

Makes one wonder exactly where all that taxpayer money is really going, doesn't it? On average, around 50% of taxpayer programs are simply wasted, the money evaporated on Administrative and other such nonsense

Do you have any experience with oilfield applications? Most of the gas out there is "sour" gas. Whether turbine or recip, extra care must be taken while run on sour gas.

First and foremost, a recip engine running on natural gas needs an engine oil designed JUST for natural gas operation. Using a conventional motor oil, or a "conventional" synthetic, you will experience very high nitration, valve seat recession, etc

For gas with high levels of H2S, you can get decent life out of the engine if an oil intended just for sour gas operation is selected. This is one such oil, all the major oil companies offer similar oils with OEM approvals

http://lubricants.petro-canada.ca/resource/download.aspx?type=TechData&iproduct=892&language=en

These oils work very well on the large V-16's and V-20's operated on oil platforms and oil fields running strictly on sour gas.

On a very large industrial scale, natural gas is "scrubbed" before delivery. If DOE and USDA would actually get their heads out of their collective asses, they could provide relatively low-cost small scale H2S scrubbers

As Manitoba has about the lowest electricity rates in North America (A surprising number of new homes are equipped with electric furnaces or electric baseboard heat), that is a none-starter. But incentives could result in efficient net-positive grid contribution at lower cost than building a 20 billion dollar power dam

Problem is, engineers like myself are rarely consulted on these issues. In government, a lot of the decision makers are career Public Servants with no clue whatsoever. You're lucky if they are a bean counter or a lawyer, which is useless for complex engineering

I'm familiar with large-scale turbines, which are aero-derivative. There are a handful of the so-called "microturbine" but they have little advantage over recip in sour gas feed

Typically, you will experience rapid GG rotor erosion with H2S exposure. Turbines intended for H2S operation often require daily "washing" of the GG rotor section. Operation with H2S has much lower impact on turbo oil life, but much greater impact on GG rotor, combuster, etc.

If the erosion causes inclusions to form in the blades, a blade separation is a pretty ugly and catastrophic event

That is what I meant about incentives to ensure this sort of system can be installed and used by the average farmer. One thing I don't understand is this weird North American thing with "environmentalists" that appear to want to shut down every farm out there

Whether methane collection or in-situ co-gen, the solution is light years better than just spraying s*** onto fields, or letting s*** ooze into waterways. Yet a lot of these crackpots can't see that, they'd rather just shut down the farm and expect us to live on soybeans and seaweed

Yeah, that is crap - pardon the pun. If the farmer is saddled with even more costs, it makes a lot more sense to leave the industry altogether and let somebody else deal with the headache

Interesting in that if you take away all the credits, grants, incentives, etc, you would not find a single oil well in the Canadian arctic, nor a single deep sea oil platform

As far as net contribution, we are actually "throwing away" free energy every day. Every time you clean out a barn, or flush your toilet after taking a crap, you are throwing away free energy

Much like how everybody whines about human wastewater disposal, while ignoring the huge potential for energy production. We'd much rather flush it away, literally

My neighbor is almost ready to set his on fire. True that everything is warranty but that doesn't count the downtime when the truck is in the shop, and everybody is scratching their pointy heads

He actually did have a problem with one of his older Detroit 60 motors. He'd be driving along, the engine quits, and could not be restarted. Wait a few hours, it would fire right up

Check engine light is on. He pulls into a Detroit shop, they say it's the crank sensor, replace it. A few months later, quits again, ditto. Starts to get expensive.

So, one day the truck actually quit in his yard, he pushed it into his shop, and calls me over. Wants to know if I know anything about Detroit motors. Well, no, not really, but I do understand the electronics behind it

He wants to know if there is a way to test the crank sensor. Well, sure there is. It's a Hall Effect sensor, I know how to test them. He pulls out the crank sensor, and it's loaded up with metal shavings

"Well, there's your problem," I say

I clean off the shavings, he puts the sensor back in, and the motor fires right up. I have no doubt the two times he paid a flunky to replace the sensor, at $260 plus labor plus downtime, they noticed shavings stuck to the sensor head.

But they just replaced the sensor without comment. Gotta keep the economy moving along

I happened to notice one brand new part on his motor, the air compressor. The other one blew about 3 months previous. No doubt, when it went, a lot of debris got into the motor

He went through the trouble of taking off the oil pan, tons of shavings inside. I suggested he use a magnetic probe, remove the crank and cam sensors, and fish around for more shavings. He did that, and 3 years later when he sold the truck, it was running perfectly

My point being is that nobody understands how to diagnose a problem anymore. They just replace expensive parts until the problem magically goes away

Oh, and that 1.5 year old Kenworth/Cummins. He had me over last month, it was in his shop. With the hood pulled up, at the firewall all the connectors are plugged into. Most of them look like large DIN connectors, same as would be used for industrial apps

I started tugging on the connectors, and one very easily popped out. It was barely seated. Used some electrical contact cleaner on the connectors, went back to my place to find a tube of connector grease, smeared it on, and reseated all those connectors

I then told him to track down every ground point, back off the bolt, spray penetrant into it, then grease it, and snug them back up.

Well, cross our fingers, it has been a month now, and the truck is still running ok. It will even crank at -10 F or colder.

Now, why didn't either the Kenworth shop, or the Cummins shop, do that? First thing they do is plug in their code reader, it claims everything it ok, and they write down "no problem found."

This is a real pet peeve of mine

With the trucking industry imploding the way it now is, the last thing they need to deal with is 10-20% lower fuel economy

 

I just helped my son salvage an $800 electric/gas range. His neighbor tossed it out because the electronic controller was dead and it was going to cost $400 to fix it. I replaced $2 worth of electrolytic capacitors and it is now as good as new. This sort of waste really bothers me.

Tom

 

There's not much to understand. In most cases, these people simply don't exist. They are manufactured strawmen designed to make any environmentalist appear "extreme". This tactic works very well, especially in the US where the political left is afraid of their own shadow. (NB: All sides use this trick)

In the rare case that you can actually find someone who will genuinely express such an opinion, well, they are simply an idiot. As far as I know, the natural habitat of idiots is not limited to North America.

 

That was indeed more than I wanted to know about diesel engines, so I skipped over some bits, but overall was interesting.

Now a bit of trivia: I posted something about this 2 or 3 years ago, so I think it's okay to repeat:

It would have been some time back in the 1970's, the dairy farm I worked on had an old tractor which I think was called a Super WD-4. Something at the back of my mind says Allis Chalmers, but I won't swear to that. It started on gasoline and then ran on diesel. There was a lever that switched the compression between low and high, a lever or switch that changed the fuel between gasoline and diesel, and a switch to turn the spark plugs on and off. There was a very small gas tank and a full-size diesel tank.

To start the tractor you'd shut off the spark, set the fuel to gasoline, and the compression to low. Then you'd press the starter, and the engine would turn over like a car with an almost dead battery, soooooooooo slowly. After a bit it would catch and run pretty rough, and smoke would come up thick. You'd let it run for about 5 minutes, by which time the exhaust was almost clear, and the engine would be running fairly smoothly. Then you'd simultaneously (using all three of your hands) switch off the spark, switch the fuel over to diesel, and pull the compression lever to high. The engine would go from that fairly smooth sound, to a dreadful slow chug, and the most vile thick black filth would spew out of the exhaust pipe. That would very slowly clear up, and after another five minutes the tractor would be ready to work.

Of course there was no cab, just the bare metal seat mounted on a kind of leaf spring, though its shape was actually not uncomfortable. And there was no power steering, so guiding it in a more or less straight line diagonally across the plow furrows (discing a plowed field) was torture.

I was glad when the farmer retired that tractor. If I know farmers, it's still sitting out there behind the shelter belt. I'm glad I had a chance to drive it though. Not many city-born boys can say they've disced a plowed field with a Super WD-4 gas-diesel tractor.

 

I think McCormick made our WD-6, which was diesel and still sits along the fencerow with other rusting metal. Wonder if the WD-4 was also McCormick? Drove the WD-6 before I was big enough to reach the clutch. Had to wedge my rear against the front of the seat (leaf spring, no cushion as you describe).

Ah, the memories. Grinding feed with a belt driven grinder. About 1/2 turn of play in the steering. Geesh.

 

A very faint voice was whispering Allis, but 35 years is a long time and I could well be mistaken about that. This one didn't have a half-turn of play in the steering wheel, but it was pretty loose. Maybe a quarter turn?

I cannot honestly say I "enjoyed" farm work, but it was in the open air, which to me was a lot better than an indoor job, even though I got minimum wage. And I liked the idea of working on a farm rather than in an office. And the bank would not hire me.

 

I used to drive a bulldozer that was gas start / diesel run. Those engines were fairly common a number of years ago (a LARGE number of years ago, but who's counting?).

Tom

 

How about those old John Deere 2 cylinder diesels that needed a V-4 "putter" gasoline motor to start it up? You'd fire up the little V-4, firewall it, then move the lever to engage the flywheel.

CHUG .... CHUG ..... CHUGG big puff of black smoke, and hopefully she fired right up

Something just occurred to me: some of us on the forum are REALLY showing our age!

 

I have no doubt about that. The Europeans place far higher value on quality, performance, and efficiency. Our CaseIH, John Deere, and New Holland tractors are downright primitive in comparison

Of course. Ask the average Canadian or American where their food comes from, the reply is usually "Safeway" or whatever store they frequent



Oy

A very poor way to approach a problem. Naturally, this saves the manufacturer a lot of problems, they can claim a given piece of equipment is "reliable" when point of fact, it is not

The operator has learned to just live with the problems. If the code scanner claims everything is okey-dokey, then the "problem" is obviously a figment of the operator's imagination

Then magically, off warranty, they find the source of the problem and ask $4,600 to fix it. Yeah, right!

No, the scan tool is useless in such a scenario. It takes good old fashioned ability and skill

When a Prius has a glitch, that is NOT evident in codes, it can be very troubling. I would have to say the biggest knock against Toyota is the sucky nature of most of their dealerships. I don't mean just those that rip you off during the purchase

If you have a sucky dealership with incompetent/dishonest service people, pray to whatever god you believe in that your Toyota will never require more than basic stuff that you can do yourself: fluid changes, filters, etc

Because if you have problems, and a sucky dealership, you are screwed. I'm lucky enough to live within 10 minutes of a fairly honest dealership, with reasonably competent service folks

 

I have experience with both MAN and Deutz, in stationary power generation particularly at oilfield sites. MAN is highly respected, and world class. Their offerings range from semi truck motors up to ocean freighter engines

The only Deutz motors I have been around have been air cooled. Although air cooled motors can be hard on oil - the proper oil is very essential - they offer a lot of advantages too. No cooling system maintenance, no leaky water pumps, etc. Just make sure the cooling fins are kept clean

I'm unsure if Deutz still makes air cooled diesel engines. Obviously the emissions will be a lot higher with an air cooled motor

 

The only Deutz motors I have seen were the air cooled variety. They are exceptionally reliable and long-lasting

 

I've worked on large marine diesels for 20 plus years. The largest of which was B&W with 46,000 Shaft HP. The Engine was a 2 stroke with a single exhaust valve. This engine had a 90cm bore and a 2.0 meter stroke. At peak the boost was just under 2 bar (30psig). This engine ran on the equivalent of #6 fuel oil with a waste heat economizer to generate steam for auxiliary systems. This engine was also direct drive, direct reversing with a max speed of 125 rpm and 25 Kts. The 700 ft cargo vessel carried 39,000 tons of cargo, did 25 Kts/hr (Almost 30mph) at peak load and could cruise around the world without refueling. The biggest marine diesel engines in the world today are Large slow speed diesel engines and exceed 100,000 SHP with over 3 bar (45psig) of boost that run in excess of 30 Kts/hr.

We often stood inside the cylinders and intake and exhaust manifold during maintenance. The reliability of these engines over millions of hours of run time is well documented. In fact these engines are so reliable that Steam, smaller 4 stroke diesels, Gas Turbine and any other propulsion system you could think of has been displaced by the large 2 stroke marine diesel engine.

There has been some inroads recently of hybrid type Gas Turbine Electric, Diesel Electric and Steam Electric in specialty marine applications but it will be many years before the Large Slow Speed Direct Drive Diesel plant is displaced in commercial applications by competing technologies.

The reason this type of engine is so prevalent in commercial marine applications is that the economics can not be beaten by any competing technology. Installation, operating costs, maintenance and fuel cost are all lower than any plant for similar service.

Cheers
Cheryl

 

A minor correction to avoid confusing people: The correct expression is "25 Kt", not Kts/hr. The term knots refers to Nautical Miles Per Hour, so time is already part of the expression. Knots/hr would be acceleration. 25 Kt rounds to 29 mph.

Tom

 

Once the carrier gets beyond coastal waters, no one really cares, but I remember once reading an article that the busier ports have raised questions about main engine emissions of NO{x} and particulates.

Is this a real concern or issue, especially for ports like Amsterdam where the prevailing winds would blow the emissions over the port and landmass before dilution?

Thanks,
Bob Wilson

 

It is a real concern and the IMO just released the control area for North American waters. Fuel must be <1%S in this area starting in 2012.

Ocean-going Vessels | US EPA

ETA: Dilution doesn't really change anything for sulfur emissions. Recall that the NE acid rain problems were caused mainly by plants in the midwest. (this was solved through cap-and-trade)

This regulation wouldn't affect NOx, but the main concern from ocean-going vessels at port is SO2 and particulates.

 

Many ports in the world have stringent emission requirements that require the vessel operators to burn fuels with extremely low sulphur content or have stack scrubbers in place during port operation to keep SOx emissions low. In fact the european area is called SECA (SOx Emission Control Area). The west coast of the USA is also very restrictive. California was a big player in ushering in local clean air regulations.

Cheers
Cheryl