Emulsified Fuel Implementation on the Latest Engines with Electronic Governor, On-Line Performance Monitoring and Auto-Tuning

This paper presents the results obtained from the combustion of emulsified fuel in marine diesel engines which are installed with electronic governor, on-line performance measurement and auto-tuning features. The limiting effects of increased fuel governor index due to the increased emulsion volume when burning emulsified fuel and electronic methods of compensating for these limiting effects are highlighted. Without proper compensation, the limiting effects can cause the engine to lose instead of improving combustion efficiency. It has been observed in previous tests that the improved combustion of emulsified fuel as the result of the secondary explosions of the injected emulsion, can be explained by the measured increased heat release rates (HRR). Further results are presented in this paper from the pressure—volume (P-V) diagrams that were measured on-line from the main engines of two ships. It was found that the increased HRR due to burning emulsified fuel, caused the P-V diagram to be "fatter" and the maximum pressure of combustion to be lowered. In the case of engines which were installed with auto-tuning feature, the maximum pressure of combustion when burning emulsified fuel was auto-tuned to the same as that when burning neat fuel. With the auto-tuning, it was able to increase the lowered maximum pressure due to burning emulsified, back to the "factory" maximum pressure and boost the fuel efficiency further. The combustion efficiency of engine with both emulsified fuel system and with auto-tuning is better than the combustion efficiency of engine with only either emulsified fuel system or only auto-tuning alone. This is a major observation in the application of emulsified fuel technology to the latest engines with electronic governor, on-line monitoring and auto-tuning.