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From diving and support vessels to LNG terminal tugboats and ... News Home Home | News Content Hub Home Back Akasaka combines technology and experience 03 Aug 2011 by Riviera Newsletters Akasaka Diesels says that it has built up its reputation and business by staying at the forefront of technology and by listening to customers’ needs since the company was fou... Akasaka Diesels says that it has built up its reputation and business by staying at the forefront of technology and by listening to customers’ needs since the company was founded just over a hundred years ago. The company has its head office in Tokyo’s Chiyoda ward, and two factories in Yaizu city equipped to design and manufacture marine diesel engines. Four-stroke engine models of between 900kW and 4,000kW are designed, manufactured and assembled at the Nakaminato plant, and Mitsubishi two-stroke engines under licence at the Toyoda complex. “Our type A engines have been developed with the concept of using a long stroke to achieve higher output with lower fuel consumption for use in cargo vessels, tankers and a variety of other vessels,” said Yukihiro Komiya, general manager of Akasaka Diesels’ overseas business group, speaking at the Sea Asia conference in Singapore in April. “These engines are found in service in many regions both domestically and overseas”. The continuous improvement programme for the six-cylinder type A engine has led to the latest AX version being smaller, lighter and having a lower fuel consumption than its predecessors. The 330mm-bore/620mm-stroke AX33B engine has an output of 1,618kW at 320 rpm. Top of the A-type range of engines is the A45S which has a bore of 450mm and a stroke of 880mm. This engine is a low speed four-stroke that has an output of 3,309kW at 220 rpm. The A45S has been designed to run on 380 cSt heavy fuel oil and the consumption is about 181 g/kWh. “Consumption rate is the same as two-stroke engines so this is the lowest consumption engine in this class,” Mr Komiya said. The A type engine is available in 12 versions designed to satisfy a range of power requirements from 1,103kW to 3,309kW and rpm requirements from 210 rpm to 340 rpm. As well as the AX and A type low speed four-stroke engines, Akasaka also produces ‘conventional’ medium speed four-stroke engine designs: the T, K and E family, and the type U. Akasaka Diesels’ Toyoda complex build nine versions of UEC two-stroke engines manufactured under licence to Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI), an association that has been in existence since 1960. The engines cover a power range from 1,535kW at 162 rpm for the five cylinder UEC33LSII engine to 13,280 kW at 124 rpm for the eight cylinder UEC50LSE engine. The Toyoda site includes a foundry with a monthly production of 1,000 tons, and a machine shop capable of handling the large components for the UEC engines. Mr Komiya also explained that “In addition to ordinary simple metal castings up to 40 tonnes we also produce special castings, specialised alloy castings and a variety of other large cast products” Combining technology and its experience gained in manufacturing components for other industries enables Akasaka Diesels to handle the entire engine manufacturing process in house, from design to manufacture and after sales service, the company says. Using this understanding of modern technology Akasaka Diesels also produces its own equipment such as the Akasaka total control system, which incorporates a remote control feature with functions included for control of the CP propeller load and engine optimisation. This enables energy saving and matching of a ship’s services to the output of the engine and includes flexible couplings and highly skewed propellers. In addition Akasaka Diesels has its own electronically controlled cylinder lubrication system which can be fitted to the Akasaka-Mitsubishi UE two-stroke engine as an Akasaka optional extra. The precise control of the cylinder oil leads to a reduction in consumption and a reduction in soot produced on part load running of the engine. The company is contributing to the development of emission technology with the development of ‘eco-friendly’ equipment such as the auto-regenerative diesel particulate filter (DPF) system which is designed to eliminate soot and dust from the exhaust gas. Akasaka says that a 5,000kW engine can emit around 5kg per hour of particulate matter which is eliminated by the use of its DPF system. Recently Akasaka Diesels has been an active partner in the Japanese ‘Super Clean Marine Diesel Project’ which has been running since 2007. With a particular focus on the two-stroke engine, the project aims to reduce a marine diesel engine’s NOx emissions by 80 per cent but still retain the same fuel consumption and power output from the engine (see below). The company has taken lessons learnt from its general engineering and applied these in the design of its own engines, the manufacture of engines under licence and in its contribution to engine development by linking with other industry partners. In-service success for first SCR NOx removal system The world's first trial of SCR NOx removal equipment after turbocharging on a low-speed marine diesel engine has been a success, the five partners in the Japanese ‘Super Clean Marine Diesel Project’ reported in June. Oshima Shipyard, MHI, Akasaka Diesels, and Sakai Chemical initiated, as a high-priority issue, R&D focused on future environmental regulations to be imposed on vessels. Since 2007, these companies have participated in the Super Clean Marine Diesel Project, which is subsidised by The Nippon Foundation, and conducted by the Japan Marine Equipment Association under the leadership of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport & Tourism. In addition, since 2010 the companies have also been involved in developing technology for a de-nitration system that will work with low-temperature exhaust gases of low speed marine diesel engines, including shipboard tests, with technical cooperation from the National Marine Research Institute. Against this backdrop, NYK Line decided to cooperate in this research with the trial installation of SCR equipment on its 88,100 dwt coal carrier Initial Salute , which was delivered by Oshima Shipbuilding in March. Shipboard trials of SCR NOx removal equipment were conducted during a voyage. Once the equipment was verified to meet IMO’s tier III NOx emission controls, it was decided to leave it in place to collect more data through tests to be conducted during operational voyages. The project team says that the new SCR NOx removal equipment will meet the Tier III NOx emission control requirement by further reducing emissions while maintaining the superior combustion efficiency that is the main feature of a low-speed marine diesel engine. It was initially thought that SCR NOx removal equipment would find it difficult to respond to future NOx emission controls because in an atmosphere of low-temperature exhaust gases below 300°C, ammonium hydrogen sulphate (acid ammonium sulphate) – generated by the chemical reaction of the sulphur in fuel oil with the ammonia in the reducing agent – poisons catalysts. However, the new SCR NOx removal equipment has been improved to reduce catalyst poisoning to a minimum level by suppressing the sulphur in fuel oil to approximately 0.1 per cent. As a result, in an atmosphere of low-temperature exhaust gases at 250°C after turbocharging, stable denitration effects were observed during a test on land, which led to shipboard tests on an operational vessel with an eye to practical use. 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