DEVELOPMENT OF A THERMODYNAMIC METHOD FOR DIAGNOSIS AND TUNING OF DIESEL-ENGINES AND ITS APPLICATION ON MARINE ENGINES

In the present paper a method is proposed for fault diagnosis and corr ect tuning of diesel engines. It is based on a thermodynamic simulatio n model of the engine and its components: the fuel injection system, t he turbocharger and the air cooler. The method requires the experiment al cylinder and fuel injection system pressure diagrams and operationa l data of the various engine sub-systems, air cooler, turbocharger, et c. It is known that it is very difficult to measure the TDC (top dead centre) on commercial engines. In order to overcome this difficulty th e TDC is determined via a thermodynamic method introduced and verified by the present research group. In this paper an application of the pr oposed method on a low-speed two-stroke marine diesel engine is presen ted. The results obtained reveal the present condition of the engine a nd its sub-systems while a comparison between calculated and experimen tal results reveals the accuracy of the simulation model used.