Turbulent jet mixing for premixed marine twostroke engines (GASMIX)

Large ships are the most efficient way to move goods long distances. No real alternatives to combustion engines as power source exist for transoceanic shipping. Candidates to reduce carbon footprint are gaseous fuels like methane and ammonia. Two-stroke engines have the highest energy efficiency, but new technology must be developed to introduce gaseous fuels in a cost-effective way, i.e. at relatively low pressure. A main challenge is to achieve sufficient mixing between fuel and air using only the last stage of the cylinder scavenging with only a short time, a confined space and low pressure nozzle flow available. A first solution has been demonstrated by MAN Energy Solutions, but optimization is needed to get both high energy efficiency and low emission of pollutants. The project will do experiments in a scale model and use these to develop solutions and to validate numerical simulations. This enables development of both new engines and upgrading of existing engines to use various gaseous fuels. This will form the last link in supply chains of new carbon-neutral fuels and also support changing markets by allowing engines to run on many different types of fuel.