Automatic control of combustion pressure offers significant advantages
MAN PrimeServ, MAN Diesel & Turbo’s service division, has announced the 100th sale of its PMI (Pressure Measuring Instrument) Auto-tuning retrofit package. The ‘MSC Filippa’, a 2011-built, 13, 400-teu container ship owned by Germany’s Peter Döhle Group, will be retrofitted to accommodate the system.
Hagen Koslowski, Technical Director of Peter Döhle Schiffahrts-KG, said: “The main driver for us in ordering PMI Auto-tuning was to reduce fuel consumption and therefore become more attractive to the charter market. Taking a broader view, the CO2 reduction and our environmental responsibility, paired with our trust in MAN products, also played key roles in the decision.”
Previous experience
The Peter Döhle Group has previous experience with PMI Auto-tuning, having recently installed it aboard a series of 6, 800-teu vessels – MV ‘Pangal’, MV ‘Puelche’ and MV ‘Petrohue’ – equipped with MAN B&W 10K98MEC-7 lowspeed engines. Of their experience with this, Koslowski said: “On all our vessels, the system runs reliably. The PMI works really well and adjustments can be seen on the CoCoS computer and MOP, while engine parameters are always at the optimal value.”
Koslowski also praised an “outstanding performance” by MAN PrimeServ’s service engineers who installed, commissioned and pre-adjusted the PMI Auto-tuning system aboard the container fleet. He added: “With the PMI system in place, we observed an SFOC drop on our engines using Bluetraker® performance monitoring. In the long term, our main expectations are extended TBOs and a smaller workload for our crews as engine performance will be permanently, automatically optimised.
Autotuning
PMI Autotuning measures the pressure in a cylinder’s combustion chamber through online sensors. These automatically send signals in real time and the data is used to automatically adjust the cylinders for optimal performance. The system replaces the older PMI Offline and Online systems.
Christian Ludwig – Head of Retrofit & Upgrade – MAN Diesel & Turbo, said: “We introduced our first PMI Autotuning system in 2010 as a result of the possibilities arising from the launch of MAN Diesel & Turbo’s electronic MEengines in 2005. The strong sales performance of our Autotuning package shows how successfully the market has taken to it. So much so, in fact, that we recently decided to make it standard on our newbuilding engines.” In fact, MAN PrimeServ reports that many owners of newbuilding engines that have featured PMI Autotuning as standard have been inspired to retrofit the rest of their fleet with the system after observing its effectiveness in the field.
Ludwig also states that the next development within PMI Autotuning is ‘PMI VIT’ for its MC engines. MAN Diesel & Turbo introduced the first prototype
system in 2013 that uses PMI data to adjust the VIT (Variable Injection Timing) system to get an optimal combustion pressure. Ludwig said: “With PMI VIT, we are addressing our sizable, mechanical MC-portfolio of engines and aiming to emulate that which PMI Autotuning has achieved with electronic engines.”
Benefits
PMI Autotuning offers a number of advantages:
• confirmed fuel savings of 1-3 g/kW
• contributes to engine safety by eliminating excessive cylinder
pressures
• offers better combustion with less stress to the engine and a
commensurate reduction in maintenance
• real-time surveillance that reduces engine maintenance
About Peter Döhle Schiffahrts-KG
The Peter Döhle Group is one of the leading providers of shipping services worldwide with core competences in chartering and the sale and purchase of ships. Founded in 1956 in Hamburg, the company operates a modern fleet of some 500 container vessels, multi-purpose vessels and bulk carriers. The company also owns about 100 vessels and part-owns a further 100 or so units including container vessels with a capacity of 600 up to 13, 000 teu.
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