by Allen Hazen
GE's press releases about the GEVO engine used in ES locomotives have been notably lacking in detail. I've finally found a few numbers, in a paper presented to the "2003 Fall Technical Conference of the ASME Internal Combustion Engine Division" in Erie PA in September 2003.
If you can get such things-- it helps to be on friendly terms with the Interlibrary Loan people at the Engineering Library of a major university-- the paper is identified by ASME as "ICEF2003-708" with the title "General Electric GEVO Engine for Tier 2 Locomotive Application" (apparently pp. 399-4407 of a conference proceedings volume); it is by Paul Flynn and Susan Napierkowski (of GE Transportation systems) and two co-authors who seem to be affiliated with a consulting engineering outfit, FEV Engine Technology (or its German branch, FEV Motorentechnik). Paul Flynn seems to be high in the pecking order in GE Transportation's engine design and development hierarchy: he also published (with two other GETS co-authors and someone from the Mech. Eng. Dept. of Gannon University (also in Erie)) a paper on "Development of the Low-Emission GE-7FDL High-Power Medium-Speed Locomotive Diesel Engine" in the April 2003 issue of an ASME journal, the "Journal of Engineering for Gas Turbines and Power," pp. 505-512.
As a non-engineer, I doubt I appreciated the fine points. The first couple of pages go over the motivation (meeting pollution controls without the sacrifices in performance etc thast would have been entailed had they tried to meet them with a tweaked FDL); there follows an account of the sorts of computational experimenting involved in working out the detailed design. Nowhere do the words "Deutz' or "HDL" occur.
Next posting will give some figures from the GEVO paper.
If you can get such things-- it helps to be on friendly terms with the Interlibrary Loan people at the Engineering Library of a major university-- the paper is identified by ASME as "ICEF2003-708" with the title "General Electric GEVO Engine for Tier 2 Locomotive Application" (apparently pp. 399-4407 of a conference proceedings volume); it is by Paul Flynn and Susan Napierkowski (of GE Transportation systems) and two co-authors who seem to be affiliated with a consulting engineering outfit, FEV Engine Technology (or its German branch, FEV Motorentechnik). Paul Flynn seems to be high in the pecking order in GE Transportation's engine design and development hierarchy: he also published (with two other GETS co-authors and someone from the Mech. Eng. Dept. of Gannon University (also in Erie)) a paper on "Development of the Low-Emission GE-7FDL High-Power Medium-Speed Locomotive Diesel Engine" in the April 2003 issue of an ASME journal, the "Journal of Engineering for Gas Turbines and Power," pp. 505-512.
As a non-engineer, I doubt I appreciated the fine points. The first couple of pages go over the motivation (meeting pollution controls without the sacrifices in performance etc thast would have been entailed had they tried to meet them with a tweaked FDL); there follows an account of the sorts of computational experimenting involved in working out the detailed design. Nowhere do the words "Deutz' or "HDL" occur.
Next posting will give some figures from the GEVO paper.
. Both were in Downers Grove.