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ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS OF DIESEL POWER PLANT

FUEL SUPPLY SYSTEM OF DIESEL POWER PLANT

It consists of storage tank, strainers, fuel transfer pump and all day fuel tanks. The fuel oil is supplied at the plant site by rail or road. The oil is stored in the storage tank. From the storage tank, oil is pumped to smaller all day tank at daily or short intervals. From this tank, fuel oil is passed through strainers to remove suspended impurities. The clean oil is injected into the engine by fuel injection pump.

AIR INTAKE SYSTEM OF DIESEL POWER PLANT

This system supplies necessary air to the engine for fuel combustion. It consists of pipes for the supply of fresh air to the engine manifold. Filters are provided to remove dust particles from air which may act as abrasive in the engine cylinder.

Because a diesel engine requires close tolerances to achieve its compression ratio, and because most diesel engines are either turbocharged or supercharged, the air entering the engine must be clean, free of debris, and as cool as possible. Also, to improve a turbocharged or supercharged engine’s efficiency, the compressed air must be cooled after being compressed. The air intake system is designed to perform these tasks. Air intake systems are usually one of two types, wet or dry. In a wet filter intake system, as shown in the Figure 4.1, the air is sucked or bubbled through a housing that holds a bath of oil such that the dirt in the air is removed by the oil in the filter. The air then flows through a screen-type material to ensure any entrained oil is removed from the air. In a dry filter system, paper, cloth, or a metal screen material is used to catch and trap dirt before it enters the engine. In addition to cleaning the air, the intake system is usually designed to intake fresh air from as far away from the engine as practicable, usually just outside of the engine’s building or enclosure. This provides the engine with a supply of air that has not been heated by the engine’s own waste heat. The reason for ensuring that an engine's air supply is as cool as possible is that cool air is denser than hot air. This means that, per unit volume, cool air has more oxygen than hot air.

Figure 4.1 : Air Intake System

Thus, cool air provides more oxygen per cylinder charge than less dense, hot air. More oxygen means a more efficient fuel burn and more power.

After being filtered, the air is routed by the intake system into the engine's intake manifold or air box. The manifold or air box is the component that directs the fresh air to each of the engine’s intake valves or ports. If the engine is turbocharged or supercharged, the fresh air will be compressed with a blower and possibly cooled before entering the intake manifold or air box. The intake system also serves to reduce the air flow noise.

EXHAUST SYSTEM OF DIESEL POWER PLANT

This system leads the engine exhaust gas outside the building and discharges it into atmosphere. A silencer is usually incorporated in the system to reduce the noise level.

The exhaust system of a diesel engine performs three functions. First, the exhaust system routes the spent combustion gasses away from the engine, where they are diluted by the atmosphere. This keeps the area around the engine habitable. Second, the exhaust system confines and routes the gases to the turbocharger, if used. Third, the exhaust system allows mufflers to be used to reduce the engine noise.

COOLING SYSTEM OF DIESEL POWER PLANT

The heat released by the burning of fuel in the engine cylinder is partially converted into work. The remainder part of the heat passes through the cylinder wall, piston, rings etc. and may cause damage to system. In order to keep the temperature of the engine parts within the safe operating limits, cooling is provided. The cooling system consists of a water source, pump and cooling towers. The pump circulates water through cylinder and head jacket. The water takes away heat form the engine and it becomes hot. The hot water is cooled by cooling towers and re circulated for cooling.

LUBRICATING SYSTEM OF DIESEL POWER PLANT

The system minimizes the wear of rubbing surfaces of the engine. It comprises of lubricating oil tank, pump, filter and oil cooler. The lubrication oil is drawn from the lubricating oil tank by the pump and is passed through filter to remove impurities .The clean lubrication oil is delivered to the points which require lubrication. The oil coolers incorporated in the system keep the temperature of the oil low.

An internal combustion engine would not run for even a few minutes if the moving parts were allowed to make metal-to-metal contact. The heat generated due to the tremendous amounts of friction would melt the metals, leading to the destruction of the engine. To prevent this, all moving parts ride on a thin film of oil that is pumped between all the moving parts of the engine. The oil serves two purposes. One purpose is to lubricate the bearing surfaces. The other purpose is to cool the bearings by absorbing the friction- generated heat. The flow of oil to the moving parts is accomplished by the engine's internal lubricating system.

Figure 4.2 : Lubricating System
Oil is accumulated and stored in the engine's oil pan where one or more oil pumps take suction and pump the oil through one or more oil filters as shown in the figure. The filters clean the oil and remove any metal that the oil has picked up due to wear. The cleaned oil then flows up into the engine's oil galleries. A pressure relief valve(s) maintains oil pressure in the galleries and returns oil to the oil pan upon high pressure. The oil galleries distribute the oil to all the bearing surfaces in the engine. Once the oil has cooled and lubricated the bearing surfaces, it flows out of the bearing and gravity-flows back into the oil pan. In medium to large diesel engines, the oil is also cooled before being distributed into the block. This is accomplished by either internal or external oil cooler. The lubrication system also supplies oil to the engine’s governor.

ENGINE STARTING SYSTEM OF DIESEL POWER PLANT

This is an arrangement to rotate the engine initially, while starting, until firing starts and the unit runs with its own power. Small sets are started manually by handles but for larger units, compressed air is used for starting. In the latter case, air at high pressure is admitted to a few of the cylinders, making them to act as reciprocating air motors to turn over the engine shaft. The fuel is admitted to the remaining cylinders which makes the engine to start under its own power.

STARTING CIRCUITS

Diesel engines have as many different types of starting circuits as there are types, sizes, and manufacturers of diesel engines. Commonly, they can be started by air motors, electric motors, hydraulic motors, and manually. The start circuit can be a simple manual start pushbutton, or a complex auto-start circuit. But in almost all cases the following events must occur for the starting engine to start.

(a) The start signal is sent to the starting motor. The air, electric, or hydraulic motor, will engage the engine’s flywheel.

(b) The starting motor will crank the engine. The starting motor will spin the engine at a high enough rpm to allow the engine’s compression to ignite the fuel and start the engine running.

(c) The engine will then accelerate to idle speed. When the starter motor is overdriven by the running motor it will disengage the flywheel.

Because a diesel engine relies on compression heat to ignite the fuel, a cold engine can rob enough heat from the gasses that the compressed air falls below the ignition temperature of the fuel. To help overcome this condition, some engines (usually small to medium sized engines) have glow plugs. Glow plugs are located in the cylinder head of the combustion chamber and use electricity to heat up the electrode at the top of the glow plug. The heat added by the glow plug is sufficient to help ignite the fuel in the cold engine. Once the engine is running, the glow plugs are turned off and the heat of combustion is sufficient to heat the block and keep the engine running. Larger engines usually heat the block and/or have powerful starting motors that are able to spin the engine long enough to allow the compression heat to fire the engine. Some large engines use air start manifolds that inject compressed air into the cylinders which rotates the engine during the start sequence.

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