INSTALLING A TEMPORARY HEAT COOLER TO INCREASE ENGINE PERFORMANCE

This project spotlight showcases how we identified excess heat as an issue that was prohibiting engine performance. Read on to hear how installing a temporary cooler achieved a 30% uplift in power production.

The background

We were on-site at this food waste AD facility as part of a more comprehensive performance improvement contract. As part of a broader investigation to assess plant downtime causes, we identified that the engine was a significant source of downtime. It wasn’t working to its maximum capacity and was experiencing issues with tripping out.  

The investigation

Our root cause analysis determined excess heat as the cause of engine-related downtime. The engine’s ability to manage the heat it produced via its cooling system was floored.

The solution

We designed a long-term modification plan that would provide a cooling solution to achieve two objectives;

1. to make sure that maximum heat was efficiently utilised elsewhere in the plant
2. and then ensured that any residual heat was drawn away from the engine and suitably cooled to avoid it overheating.

The result

The long-term cooling solution was part of a more significant project that involved Capex and long lead times. So, in the interim, we designed and installed a temporary cooler and modified pipework to achieve immediate results.

The pipework modifications we made at this point laid preparation for the install of the long-term solution. Thus, reducing that future install from 1 week’s work to 1hour.

The changes we made with this temporary solution immediately increased power production performance by 30%.