PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT OF A LARGE INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINE DUE TO INLET AIR COOLING AND DEHUMIDIFICATION: GT-POWER SOFTWARE SIMULATION

Large internal combustion engines (ICEs) performance is limited by knocking phenomenon due to harsh ambient conditions such as hot temperature and excessive humidity. The performance of these engines can be enhanced by cooling and dehumidifying the inlet air on turbocharger upstream under safe operation conditions through a cooling coil heat exchanger, hence, increasing the power output as well as reducing the brake specific fuel consumption and pollutant specific emissions. Analysis have been performed in the GT-POWER software through a 1-D thermodynamic modelling of the Wärtsilä W20V34SG engine, making it possible to verify the influence of cooled and dehumidified ambient air, considering a temperature range from 9.5°C (282.7 K) to 15.5°C (288.7 K), while keeping 1 bar for pressure and relative humidity of 100%. Furthermore, the brake mean effective pressure (BMEP) has been set from 20 to 23.45 bar with a step of 1.15 bar. Such simulations are aimed to find the maximum air temperature at the cooling coil outlet in which the average of maximum cylinder pressures does not exceed the safety limit pressure of 186 bar while maintaining control on the wastegate valve. As a result, it was possible to evaluate that the maximum temperature to be chosen, under the conditions already mentioned, should be lower than 13.8°C (287 K).