TRAINS UV14 – Efficient gas-engine propulsion systems for multiple units
Description of project
This project is part of the TRAINS alliance, which is funded by the grant program WE! – Change through innovation in the region of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research.
The sub-project “Engine development” of the WTZ Roßlau in the project “TRAINS UV14 – Efficient gas engine propulsion systems for multiple units” pursues the goal of developing a complete gas engine, which is designed for the combustion of any mixture (0 – 100 %) of methane and hydrogen. Compared to previous work on gas engines, the project features three major innovations:
- Existing engines can be converted and run on both pure hydrogen and pure methane / natural gas / biogas with the same hardware
- Fully variable mixing ratio of the two gases through automatic adjustment of the operating parameters in the engine control software
- To increase power and efficiency compared to existing hydrogen gas engines, direct injection is to be implemented
In order to operate a stock engine with the targeted mixtures, three work steps are planned, which will be carried out by WTZ, Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg (OvGU) and techcos GmbH in close cooperation. Both the adaptation of the engine, including the design of the components, and the application of the combustion process are carried out by the WTZ. In contrast, OvGU undertakes simulative studies for preliminary estimation and basic design of operating parameters. Safety aspects, such as system monitoring and fault analysis, are handled in collaboration with techcos.
In engine development, it is also desirable to carry out as much development work as possible on the single-cylinder engine. This is because the latter not only has reduced complexity, but also places lower demands on the test bench and requires less fuel than a full engine. For this reason, the injection and ignition strategy is to be applied and optimized on the single-cylinder engine before conversion and adjustments to hardware and software take place on the full engine.
For more information, visit the TRAINS Alliance website at:
https://www.trains-anhalt.de/startseite.html