Fault diagnostics and adjustment of the fuel system of a medium-speed diesel engine using heat release characteristics

Abstract

Adjustment of the diesel fuel equipment is an important condition for maintaining the technical condition of the diesel engine in operation at the level declared by the manufacturer. This paper presents the results of an experimental study of the method previously proposed by the authors for tuning the fuel system of a diesel engine based on the analysis of diagrams of net heat release in the cylinder. Net heat release diagrams are calculated based on the first law of thermodynamics, written for a closed system, using only cylinder pressure and cylinder volume. The method allows some instability of the load mode during testing and does not require simultaneous measurement of in-cylinder pressure in all engine cylinders. The method is adapted for typical operating conditions and in-cylinder pressure measurement through the indicator channel. The object of the study was a medium-speed six-cylinder diesel engine with a high-pressure hydromechanical fuel pump. The article also considers the possibility of using net heat release diagrams to identify injector malfunctions that lead to poor fuel atomization.