Exhaust gases temperature monitoring system – easy and cheapest method of continuous monitoring of the Engine’s condition.
Mariusz Rosenkranc
?Team leader ?Project Manager ?Quality Manager ?Direction of operation ?V-ice president Info Marine Service ?Vibration Analyst Cat 3 ?Condition Monitoring Engineer
Exhaust gases temperature is one of the most important parameters of the engine performance. Too high, too low temperature or big difference in temperatures between two cylinders can indicate problems with fuel injection system, valve timing and many others. Problems with injectors or valves timing can cause higher fuel consumption which is directly connected with growth of vessel’s operation costs.
It is a standard for almost all new engines to have a system of monitoring exhaust gases installed or prepared placed for the temperature sensors. What about the Engines that don’t have this system or places for temperature sensors installation?
One of our clients has this kind of problem and below is our solution for it.
Implementation of monitoring system was prepared for four Engines CAT 3412. Each Engine has 12 cylinders. Generally overview of proposed system is presented below:
The main collecting and display unit – Marcon – can have up to 36 thermocouples input. The information that is displayed in Engine Room can be transferred and displayed in other locations – Bridge or Engine Control Room.
For this project we chose sensors with the smallest available thread which is screwed into Engine body:
Exhaust manifold was chosen as the sensor location. The exact place for drilling was chosen based on cross-section of the old exhaust manifold. It was important to install temperature sensor with enough distance to the weld inside the manifold window as shown on below picture:
The option for drilling was also tested on the old manifold and the results are shown below:
The final look of sensors installed on Engine with appropriate cables protection:
Cables from thermocouples were routed to nearby Marcon installed on one of the bars in the Engine Room.
The additional advantage for client was the implementation of our exhaust monitoring system with existing monitoring system – K- Chief 600- via Modbus RS-485.