Page 111: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (August 2016)

The new TDI TurboGuard air starter is designed to pro- vide large reciprocating engines a safeguard against signi? cant damage, downtime caused by hydroLock.

New TDI TurboGuard Air Starter

Maintaining a vessel’s engine is tops on any and any engine application that has extended pe- operator’s maintenance list, and reciprocating riods of time between starts would also be good engines that sit idle or have extended periods of candidates for TurboGuard.

time between starts can be susceptible to coolant The TurboGuard’s intelligent control system leaking into cylinders. When the engine is started extends the normal three to ? ve-second start in this condition, coolant is driven through the cycle to ~10 seconds using the relay valves, compression cycle at very high pressures caus- solenoids and regulator to precisely control the ing a potentially damaging consequence called crank. As the engine is slowly rotated, the starter hydrolock. The result can be bent piston rods, system monitors for anomalies in the process damaged ring gear, a cracked block, damaged indicating a hydrolock condition. If an obstruc- crankshaft and downtime that can take as much tion is detected, the starter sequence is aborted. time as it takes to get a new engine. If no obstruction is detected, the engine will be

TDI’s TurboGuard Smart Starter detects the brought to normal crank speed utilizing a “soft- presence of coolant or other obstructions during start pressure ramp” to minimize impact torque the start sequence. TurboGuard automatically between starter pinion and engine ring gear. This shuts down the starting process before any dam- is an additional bene? t to reduce pinion and ring age occurs. “We are able to regulate air pressure gear wear. and speed in such a precise way we can deter- TurboGuard is a complete engineered start sys- mine if there are cylinder obstructions. If so, the tem made up of the turbine air starter with the start is aborted before the inertia of the system control unit, integrated relay valves, solenoids, has enough energy to cause damage,” said Dave regulator and other components. TurboGuard is

Rawlins, Senior Product Manager at TDI, in in- targeted for large reciprocal engines from 70-300 troducing the product. “This is a signi? cant en- liters. It ? ts the same engine market as TDI’s gineering accomplishment because a typical tur- T100-B and T100-V models.

bine air start cycle can go from 0 to 150 rpms “We realize every engine has its own normal (engine speed) in just a couple of seconds.” operating conditions which is why we have in-

Engine operations looking to safeguard their cluded a programmable “immediate start” which engine applications will be very interested in allows the safe start feature to be by-passed since

TurboGuard as well as any operation with black the engine has been started in normal operation starts like unmanned compressor stations, or so would not need a safe start,” said Rawlins.

www.tdi-turbostart.com peak power generation stations. Marine engines www.marinelink.com 111

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