Development of China First Ammonia Dual-Fuel Large Engine for Marine Applications
Ahmed Al-Sened*, Xiaodong L, Yu Xing, Uyanzhao li, Shuangcheng Zhang, Yang Gaoy, Huan yin, Yuan Lu and Hao Zou
ABSTRACT
A concerted efforts have been devoted by the “Marine Clean Fuel Joint-Study Union” led by COSCO SHIPPING Heavy Industry Co Ltd in China to accomplish the emission reduction target toward IMO zero- or carbon neutral efficacy. The major issues of using the current marine fossil fuels are the exhaust emission of GHG, NOx, SOx and PM, which will certainly be eliminated by switching to alternative fuel such as Ammonia. CRRC Dalian joined this consortium to supply the Ammonia fuelled engines in collaboration with COSCO to produce the first tugboat in China with Ammonia fuel for the maritime industry sustainability.
CRRC Dalian will supply two of the newly developed ammonia dual-fuel engines “12V240H-DFA” to be installed into a newly built ammonia tugboat, which is required to reach a certain target for diesel fuel substitution. The new engine will be able to switch between Ammonia and Diesel for its duty operations, giving a great flexibility advantage in the transition time towards the journey of decarburization of the industry. This type of engine is expected to be widely used as Ammonia is well placed to be taken up as a future marine fuel. However, it faces some serious challenges associated with the handling, storage, bunkering infrastructure and health & safety. These issues require effective process, specialised equipment and facilities, which have developed, verified and fully approved by the Chinese Classification Society (CCS).
This work reports the finding of the newly developed engine based on the proven CRRC dual fuel 12V240H-DFA, which has undergone a series of design changes and new addition of multi-point injection system, VG turbocharger, control system and EFI pilot diesel system. The engine design has been certified to IGF compliance by CCS’s relevant ammonia standards such as Double Wall & Ventilation, Ammonia Supply Interlock, Ammonia Automatic Vent, Nitrogen Purge, Independent Security System, Knock/Misfire Monitor, Explosion Relief Valve, Crankcase Inert and Leakage Detector.
CRRC Dalian has completed all the design and analysis to optimise the new Ammonia DF engine and verified by R&D testing to the target specified by the boat owner. The engine has reached the required service power output; the fuel substitution targets and the thermal efficiency with stable and safe combustion. The engine has been validated to all performance intent and undergoing fine tuning calibration for optimum configuration. The engine has also achieved the target emission compliance with the Chinese standard for marine engines “GB15097-2016 stage 2” with the aid of fitting aftertreatment system of both SCR and ASC to deal with NOx and Ammonia slip respectively. The design, simulations, prototype test results and installation on the boat will be presented in details.
The Ammonia DF fuelled COSCO tugboat has completed serving a year duty with the ammonia DF engine successfully and has gone through first year maintenance without encountering any issue due to the use of Ammonia fuel. The engine also has been serviced the 12-month interval and parts have been examined over and above the usual inspection used to be carried out on similar engine run on diesel only fuel. After-sale service department team were involved in the demeriting the parts and has not reported any inferior behaviour of particular stress due to the use of Ammonia fuel in the dual-fuel combustion of this engine with significant CO2 reduction performance.
