Page 12: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (April 2003)

Investment in Design "MAN B&W is convinced that the ME engine will overtake the conventional engines in the course of the next decade," said Peter Sunn Federsen, executive vice-president, in charge of the two-stroke business unit within the

MAN B&W Diesel group. "For shipowners, the purchase of the large

ME engines will be cost-neutral, maybe even cheaper. In operation, the engine can save money, partly because the fuel consumption is lower at part loads, and partly because savings are made in maintenance," he added.

The ability to optimize the plant for, say, exacting criteria governing smoke emissions in certain ports is indeed a valuable environmental feature, but this goes hand-in-hand with the wider, prac- tical goal of achieving the best combus- tion at every stage in the vessel's operat- ing profile. The electronic arrangements incorporated on Bow Cecil's engine, for instance, have facilitated tuning to the widely differing properties of the heavy fuel oil bunkered at a number of loca- tions around the world.

The ME program is a pillar of MAN

B&W's technical endeavors to maintain its pre-eminent position in the global two-stroke propulsion market. The development project has entailed total expenditure of approximately $ 14.5-mil- lion, and absorbed 215 man-years on the part of 60 engineers and technicians.

Most significantly, MAN B&W has developed the necessary electronics itself, and programmed the engine's inte- grated control system. Extensive tests have been conducted with systems fitted to its dedicated research engine in

Copenhagen. Whereas the retrofitting of the electronic elements to the Bow

Cecil's 6L60MC engine left the camshaft in situ, albeit now unused, the 7S50ME-C installation for the Odfjell newbuild has been manufactured and supplied with fully integrated electronics that eliminate the camshaft.

The 500-mm bore size encapsulated by the Odfjell parcel tanker main engine is at the lower end of the application range for the ME technology.

Contracts and preliminary orders for electronic variants include machinery up to the largest two-stroke currently in pro- duction. the 980 mm-bore K98 family, and MAN B&W also advocates the sys- tem for an envisioned new generation of containership engines, designed with a record-breaking bore of 1,080-mm.

The seminal 7S50ME-C unit of 10,430-kW (14,200-bhp) was manufac- tured at the Alpha works, a bastion of the

European diesel engineering and inte- grated propulsion system production in northern Jutland, for supply to

Norwegian shipyard Kleven Floro. The recipient parcel tanker is scheduled for handover during the spring of this year.

In essence, the advantages of the ME series arise from the fact that the timing and intensity of fuel oil injection and exhaust valve opening and closing is optimal at all steady and transient loads, making for lower part-load consump- tion, lower emissions and particularly smoother and improved low-load opera- tion. The balance between cylinders is easier to adjust for smoother operation, militating in favor of longer TBOs (times between overhaul).

Rather than being reliant on a conven- tional camshaft. ME engines provide power for fuel injection and exhaust valve lifting by way of a hydraulic oil loop, using fine-filtered oil from the main engine lubricating system at about 200 bar pressure. The microprocessor- based. electro-hydraulic Engine Control 7S50ME-C for Bow Firda Chem Tanker

Lenglh 10.25 m

Width 4.75 m

Height 9.33 m

Mass 235 tons kW 10.430 kW (cyl.) 1,49

RPM 12

MEP 19

Propeller VBS 1560

Control Alphatronic 2000

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