Influência do resfriamento da turbina no desempenho de um motor diesel turboalimentado ottolizado para gás natural

Abstract

Seeking to meet the electricity demand in Brazil, power plants, industries and businesses showed an increase in consumption of natural gas by 17.5% between 2013 and 2014 (RESENHA ENERGÉTICA BRASILEIRA, 2015). Most of these facilities use generators for electricity through natural gas. Such groups are formed generally by a Diesel engine coupled to an electric generator. The engines of these groups may be classified as aspirated or turbocharged. It is known, moreover, that the gaseous emissions generated by the Diesel engine, make replaced by clean fuels such as natural gas, an attractive alternative. Converstion of Diesel engines for the Otto cycle, may be an option for generating electricity from natural gas, mainly because it is a low cost compared to the price of gas gensets technology. However, in turbocharged engines converted to natural gas, are identified during operations, temperatures higher than those allowed in the turbine, limiting thus the possibility of reaching the rated power of these motors. The use, however, a heat exchanger gives rise to a Diesel engine converted to Otto cycle work without restriction in all its power domain. This paper examines the issues related to the choice of a heat exchanger, construction, installation and the results of its operation in a motor Perkins turbocharged converted to Otto cycle for natural gas. In performance tests, we used a hydraulic dynamometer, with a maximum of 500 hp capacity. All tests were performed with the rotation set at 1800 RPM, for all powers of labor, including the original maximum power that had diesel, stand-by time of 153 cv (112.4 kW). The maximum thermal efficieny of the engine was 39.1 % for 153 cv power. The NOx and CO levels, were, respectively, 348 ppm and 3.48 % when the engine is operated at power of 153 cv. The effectiveness of the introduced heat exchanger ranged between 33 and 33.7 %.