The Technical University of Denmark announced that, in cooperation with MAN Diesel & Turbo, a young DTU researcher develops new software, which makes it possible to limit emissions of NOx particles and black smoke. The invention will be implemented in new marine engines from the end of 2017.
“EGR technology is one way of reducing NOx emissions. However, the regulator for the EGR technology meant that black smoke was created in connection with rapid acceleration of the ship, which is undesirable and can damage the engine. The black smoke could be removed by manoeuvring ships differently, but we wanted to maintain the current sailing properties and solve the problem in a different way instead,” explains Head of Emission Control, Casper Hededal Svendsen, MAN Diesel & Turbo.
The researcher, Kræn Vodder Nielsen, explained that, as the marine engines are more complex than car engines and they are difficult to just copy their approach, he needed to develop a new method for marine engines.
MAN Diesel & Turbo uses EGR technology, in which part of the exhaust gas is recirculated to the engine to limit NOx emissions. It is crucial in this context that the recirculation take place with the right quantity of exhaust so that enough is recirculated to reduce the formation of NOx and there is sufficient oxygen to combust the fuel – thus preventing black smoke when the ship accelerates or slows down.
Relatively early in the PhD process, Kræn Vodder Nielsen sailed on a large container ship to get a sense of how his research would ultimately be used.
“I found out that the academic methods for development of the control of a marine engine with EGR technology at that time were too complex. Therefore, it quickly became clear to me that I had to develop a simple model that includes only the critical part of the system that we wanted to improve. From there, we developed a new control that coordinates the recirculation and fuel injection without requiring too much tuning of other parts of the system,” explains Kræn Vodder Nielsen.
Kræn Vodder Nielsen succeeded in developing new control technology, which was tested on a couple of marine engines during the project. This quickly showed that it worked, avoiding the formation of black smoke without affecting the vessel’s manoeuvrability. Currently, he is helping finalise his software so that, from the end of the year, it can be implemented in new marine engines.
“Initially, I will go out and install it on the ships, but in the long term the plan is that I will write a guide so that shipbuilders and crews can fine-tune the system themselves,” explains Kræn.
