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Auto Gas Filling Complex +
Alternative Fuel
International Scientific and Technical Journal
"АвтоГазозаправочный Комплекс +
Альтернативное Топливо"
Международный научно-технический журнал
Russian Version of The Journal
Anglo-American Version of the Journal
( Selected Abstracts of Articles )
Issue № 3 ( 5 ) 2009
P R O P A N E - B U T A N E
C N G - L N G
Agricultural tractor using LNG as a motor fuel, instead of CNG.
LNG enables to diminish wheel pressure on the earth and make
the fuel delivery more simple.
"Cryogenmash" LNG producing unit. Capacity - 36 tons of LNG per 24 hours
"Cryogenmash" LNG producing unit during its assembly
GAS LOCOMOTIVE "TEM- 18 G- 002"
GAS LOCOMOTIVE "TEM- 18 G- 002" WITH BOOSTER SECTION FOR CNG FUEL
GAS LOCOMOTIVE "TEM- 18 G- 002" WITH LNG CRYOGENIC FUEL TANK
The first in the world LNG turbo railways locomotive
Gas Turbo Locomotive GT-1
A full text of an article by
Kossov V. S.,
Professor,
Doctor of technical sciences, General director of Open Joint Stock
Society
"VNIKTI"
The exhaustion of stocks of the
mineral raw
materials used as fuel and universal environmental contamination by
emissions
of the exhaust gases leads the world scientific community to search for
new
alternative sources of fuel.
The question of replacement of
diesel fuel with
alternative kinds of fuel, including natural gas, for use in autonomous
locomotives became now the most actual in connection with world rise in
prices
of liquid fuels and in connection wit an
exhaustion of the
world oil deposits.
In accordance with power
strategy of Open Joint
Stock Society "Russian Railways" and realizing the
perspectives of application of natural gas as
a fuel for railways locomotives and the necessity to create a high
power
autonomous locomotive, capable to pull trains with weight from 8000 to
12000 т,
the Open Joint
Stock Society
"Russian Railways" in
2005 has
charged the Open Joint Stock Society "VNIKTI" ( R&D Institute)
with the task to make the
project of the
powerful autonomous locomotive
with gas
turbo engine, working on liquefied
natural gas (LNG).
The advantages of LNG as а
motor fuel are
explained by its higher density (three times more condenses than
compressed
gas). This allows improving of the technical characteristics of
vehicles
essentially. It makes it possible to reduce dimensions and the weight
of onboard
storage system of fuel, to increase a running distance from one
refueling to
the next one. For example, for running at the distance of
The choice of a gas turbo
engine for a gas
turbo locomotive is a basic problem which was necessary to solve taking
into
account too many factors, including the task
set for the constructors
– to
create a gas turbo
locomotive within the
short period of two
years.
The experience of construction
and operation in
50–70th of the XX century of the first domestic gas turbo
locomotives with efficiency
of 18 % working on heavy fuel, has shown a strong dependence of the
specific
expense of fuel on the efficiency of power factor of a gas turbo
engine, and
accordingly, and on the weight of a train (picture 2).
Naturally, choosing a gas turbo
engine there
was a question on finding an engine
with
capacity not less 40-45% and with
power
not less than 8000 kilowatts , an engine capable to work on gas in sharply variable modes,
with service life
before major repairs not less than 100000 hour.
Unfortunately, the world industry does not manufacture such engines now.
Therefore while choosing a gas
turbo engine for
gas turbo locomotive, after an analysis of a number of gas turbo units
applied
to a power drive gear, in a range of 5-8 Mvt (fig. 3) we have chosen an
engine
offered by the Open Joint Stock Society «SNTK named after
N.D.Kuznetsov». This
company has an experience to create a gas turbo engine NK-88 for the
experimental aircraft TU-155, the engine of which worked on liquid
hydrogen and
liquefied natural gas. Nowhere else such
a work was conducted, and more
of it, nowhere else
there was a work on
using natural liquid gas as a fuel
for railway means
of transport.
However wide use of LNG on a
railway
transportation as a multiple-purpose motor fuel, demands solving off
some specific
problems connected with manufacture,
storage and transportation of boiling at low temperatures (cryogenic)
liquids
at normal temperatures. Most important of these problems is
–to work
out
an effective mode of industrial liquefying
of natural gas as in Russia now there are
only low productive
liquefying stations
(several tons per
hour) which creates
considerable difficulties for refueling of gas turbo locomotives.
One of the important problems
that should be
solved before using LNG in a gas turbo engine is the transformation of
liquefied gas in a gaseous phase before pumping it into combustion
chambers of
a gas turbo locomotive. One of the most widespread modes is heating up
liquefied gas in the water heat exchanger where water is heated up with
electric thermo rods or it is heated by hot exhaust gases. This scheme
is
difficult enough, as there appears the intermediate heat-carrier; there
is a
problem of the first start, especially during winter time.
The most simple is the scheme
where liquefied
gas turns to a gaseous state in the heat exchanger installed in an
exhaust
nozzle of the turbine. This scheme has been developed and applied for
the first
time by Joint Stock Open Society «SNTK named after
N.D.Kuznetsov». on gas turbo
engine NK-88 installed at a trial plane TU-155. Liquefied hydrogen and
liquefied
natural gas was used as the turbine fuel . In total
ТU-155 has performed about 100 test
flights on liquid hydrogen and LMG. It had
been proved that gas turbo engine can work
on cryogenic fuel. During working at
this engine the experimental basis for testing of
the
cryogenic
equipment has been created, and there was created a unique collective
in the
world of highly skilled experts in the field of cryogenic aircraft.
At creation gas turbo
locomotive, working on liquefied
natural gas, it is necessary to solve a number of difficult scientific
and
technical problems:
•
Creation
of gas turbo engine, working on liquefied natural gas;
•
Working
out and construction of high rotation (6000 rpm) power generators,
microprocessor control and diagnostic systems;
• Working out of algorithms of systems of the regulation which provide proper interaction of gas turbo engine work, a fuel supply system and the electric drive;
•
Working
out of locomotive onboard systems of storage, supply and regasification
of
liquefied gas;
•
Creation
of a flexible line for cryogenic fuel supply from the section to
another
section;
•
Creation
of oil supply systems for bearings gas turbo engine and
generators with oil cooling by cryogenic
fuel;
•
System
engineering for fire and explosion safety
•
System
engineering of ecological protection and safety;
•
System
engineering of cooling for power electric machinery
As these problems will demand
many years of
carrying out of research and development and considerable financing for
speeding up of solving the
primary goal
- using natural liquefied gas for
autonomous locomotives, - it was necessary to find
ready
made units and aggregates
making it possible to
solve this problem
within two years.
1. With the purpose not to
solve a problem of
creation of a new locomotive, the decision was made to
use a body and a running gear of electric
locomotive VL15. At present it is one of the most powerful cargo main
electric
locomotives with the length of section with automatic couplers up to
2. The
technical and economic calculations have shown that
at the
first stage
it is expedient to install at the first gas turbo locomotive a gas turbo engine NK-361
created on the
basis of engine NK-36 of the Open Joint Stock Society " SNTK named
after
N.D.Kuznetsov»"
3. Other aggregate units were
necessary to
create as new ones:
•
For
working out a cryogenic block and a fuel system
Open Society "UralCryoMach" (Nizhniy Tagil) was
invited as its
specialists had a
wide experience of
working out of such systems for rocket installations;
•
Creation
of traction and auxiliary generators was entrusted to Open Society
"Drive
gear" (Lysva) whose experts had an experience in
working out and construction of generators
for gas turbo installations;
•
Working
out of microprocessor control systems and diagnostics of traction drive
and the
auxiliary equipment, all power electricity transmission, including
traction
rectifiers and auxiliary converters, systems of cooling of traction
electric
machines and the general installation scheme of aggregate units for the
gas turbo locomotive was taken by the Open Joint
Stock
Society
"VNIKTI”.
4. Installation and
manufacturing of some
locomotive bogy parts was entrusted to
The pre-production model of gas
turbo
locomotive (fig. 4) consists of 2 sections with one section used as the
basic
traction section with the power block in which structure a gas turbo
engine
NK-361 is installed along with, main traction and auxiliary generators.
The
other section is used as a booster section with cryogenic vessel, the
auxiliary
diesel engine-generator. Each section has one cabin of steering and all
leading
(12) axis.
Technical characteristics of
gas turbo
locomotive, a towing performance are on fig. 5
The basic scheme of gas turbo
engine
installations is presented on fig. 7.
The gas turbo engine ( GTE) has
two shafts with
the free traction turbine, a starting engine operation is carried out
by an
electric starter taking electrical power from the auxiliary diesel
engine-generator.
Oil systems GTE and generators
are separate
different grades of oil are applied in them.
Oil cooling is made in heat recycling devices by
cryogenic
fuel.
The fuel system of GTE is shown
on fig. 9.
The cryogenic
storage vessel is
installed in the
booster section of GTE
and is intended for reception, storage
and delivery LNG first to cryogenic pumps,
than to a
gasification unit and further to spray jets of GTE. The system of
communications of the cryogenic block is intended for realization of
technological operations and coupling with LNG stations of refueling,
with
traction section of GTE. The gas units are connected among themselves
by means
of flexible intersection main pipelines.
The system of communications
consists of manual
cut off and safety equipment, regulated valves, cryogenic and gas pipe
ducts.
During the process of
manufacturing of GTE (which
was given index NK-361) a number of aggregate unites were tested,
including
combustion chamber to enable the start up with a cold gas.
n the end of 2006 the
power-plant of gas turbo
locomotive has been tested with by loading with
water rheostats with use liquefied natural gas.
The conducted tests have
confirmed the
conformity of experimental data with theoretical calculations; however
the
system of regulation of the power block has demanded the completion of
design
of structure and algorithms of the block of regulation.
In total
seven trial trips has been made with
weight load from
2300
to 15000
tons., which have shown that the expenses for fuel due to application
gas turbo engine
in
comparison
with the diesel one has been reduced by
30 %.
After the modernization is
complete and new
trial trips are over this gas turbo locomotive will be sent for
pre-production
operation on the
Fuel consumption depending on the power efficiency of GTL
Power Section and Cryogenic Vessel Section of GT-1
Specifications of GT-1
Power Pull Characteristics of GT-1
Specifications of GT-1 Gas Turbo Engine
The principal engine scheme of GTE NK-362 (pic. 7) and fuel supply of GT-1 ( pic. 9 )
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