Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Technical Review Vol. 52 No. 1 (March 2015)
36

Energy Savings through Electric-assist Turbochargerfor Marine Diesel Engines

KEIICHI SHIRAISHI*1

YOSHIHISA ONO*2

YUKIO YAMASHITA*3MUSASHI SAKAMOTO*3

The extremely slow steaming of ships has become the mainstream on the back of the recent
energy-saving trend. Turbochargers (super chargers) for marine diesel engines are generally
driven only by exhaust gas energy. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Marine Machinery & Engine Co.,
Ltd. has developed an electric-assist system for large turbocharger for marine diesel engines, andverified high energy saving advantages in the low-load operating range of the engine. This paper
reports the effect of an electric-assist system for turbocharger rotors with test results in two- andfour-stroke engines.

|1. Introduction
The ratio of fuel oil costs in ship operational costs has become nearly 50% with the recent
price hike in fuel oil and the advancement of shipping operation streamlining. As a result, thereduction of fuel consumption in the total ship operational costs has become an important issue forshipping companies.1 Many ships have begun to adopt high-efficiency propellers, waste-heatrecovery systems of propulsion (main) diesel engines, friction reduction systems that generate
bubbles under the ship hull, etc. Slow steaming is the easiest way to reduce fuel oil consumption.
The ship’s speed is proportional to the cube root of main engine output power. Therefore, the fuelcost will be reduced in proportion to the square of the speed reduction rate per operational distanceassuming that the fuel oil consumption ratio of the main engine remains constant. For this reason,slow steaming at 30% or lower engine load is not uncommon these days.
Under such low-load operation, energy saving through waste heat recovery from the main
engine is difficult, and the poor performance of a turbocharger driven by scarce exhaust gas energy
becomes evident. For this reason, the two-stroke engine requires the combined use of theturbocharger and electric auxiliary blower under low-load operation. In addition, four-stroke
engines tend to show a rather high exhaust gas temperature with air shortages under low-loadoperation, which may result in decreased reliability, increased fuel consumption, and more smoke
caused by poor combustion.
The authors have verified the effect of increased air flow rate by electrically assisting theturbocharger rotation to improve engine performance under low-load operation in engine operating
tests. As a result, a significant energy saving effect can be expected by reducing fuel oil
consumption.

|2. Outline of Hybrid Turbocharger
The power generating technology that leads the expanded exhaust gas after the turbocharger
into a boiler to generate steam and drive a steam turbine has become common as an energy savingsystem of ships with marine diesel engines. This energy saving system utilizes waste heat and has
been adopted in many ships while scarcely affecting the diesel engine performance. As shown in*1

Senior Manager, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Marine Machinery & Engine Co., Ltd.

*2

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Marine Machinery & Engine Co., Ltd.

*3

Nagasaki Research & Development Center, Technology & Innovation Headquarters

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Technical Review Vol. 52 No. 1 (March 2015)
37

Figure 1, for active heat recovery, a turbo compound system where high temperature and highpressure exhaust gas is partially extracted to a small exhaust gas turbine (power turbine) combinedwith a steam turbine to drive a generator and generate electricity (much like the steam turbine
described above) is mainly used in large container vessels, etc. In this case, the exhaust gas amountextracted to the turbocharger turbine becomes small compared with a system without a power
turbine, and the exhaust gas temperature and pressure are adjusted higher to gain power sufficient
to compress enough air.

Figure 1

Turbo compound system (waste heat recovery system)

The turbocharger is generally constructed with the exhaust gas turbine and compressor
placed at the both ends of a shaft. The turbine converts the exhaust gas energy to rotational energy,and drives the compressor to send compressed air to the engine. The rotational energy is huge,accounting for up to 50% of the engine output power. In the case of a hybrid turbocharger, agenerator is coaxially and directly connected to the shaft, and the rotational energy is partially used
for electrical generation. All of the exhaust gas exhausted from the engine enters the hybrid
turbocharger turbine, and its energy is converted to the rotational energy of the turbocharger rotor.
Some of the exhaust gas is used for the generator, and the exhaust gas temperature and pressure at
the turbine inlet must be raised to ensure sufficient energy to compress the air. In other words, ahybrid turbocharger and an ordinary turbocharger with a power turbine affect the engine in asimilar manner.
A turbocharger with higher efficiency gains more rotational energy from the exhaust gas
energy, and compresses the required amount of air using less rotational energy. Therefore, theturbocharger allows more energy to be used for electric power generation. Recent high-efficiency
hybrid turbochargers can supply sufficient amounts of air with sufficient pressure to the engine
after using approximately 13% of the rotational energy for electrical generation.
A sectional view of the hybrid turbocharger is shown in Figure 2. A permanent magnet
3-phase AC synchronous generator is supported with the robust cast-iron shell. The rotor of thisgenerator and the rotor of the turbocharger are directly connected with a diaphragm type flexible
coupling. Even in the case of the large MET83MB model turbocharger, the maximum rotational
speed is 10,000 rpm or higher, and the frequency of electric current approaches 700Hz. The current
is rectified to DC current by a converter and converted by an inverter to 60Hz constant electric
power to be connected to the electric power grid onboard. Figure 3 shows an external view of theonboard inverter and converter. This converter is not a simple rectifier with diodes, but asynchronous rectifier with switching devices (IGBT) as shown in Figure 4. With the mode changeof generating to motoring, the turbocharger rotor can be accelerated. In other words, anelectric-assist function is possible, and the system has the advantages shown in the following
chapter under low-load operation for both two- and four-stroke engines.

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Technical Review Vol. 52 No. 1 (March 2015)
38

Figure 2 Sectional view of hybrid
turbocharger

Figure 4

Figure 3 External view of inverter (left) andconverter (right)

Bi-directional inverter/converter|3. Electric-assist Turbocharger in Two-stroke Engine
3.1

Problem of Electric Auxiliary Blower

In the uniflow scavenging air model two-stroke diesel engines, which is the main
configuration of large-commercial-ship propulsion plants,, the scavenging air flows into thecylinder when the piston is pushed down by combustion pressure, and moved down below thescavenging ports. At this timing the exhaust valve located at the cylinder upper position is alreadyopened, and the air scavenges exhaust gas. The piston then moves upward to compress air. Thescavenging air pressure should be raised enough to effectively replace the combustion gas in thecylinder with air. The turbocharger has the function to raise the scavenging air pressure, but theturbocharger alone cannot raise the pressure sufficiently under low-load operation with a small
amount of exhaust gas energy. An electric auxiliary blower is provided at the compressor outlet of
the turbocharger, and it is operated when the engine load is 30% or below.
The auxiliary blower performance, reliability and economic efficiency had not been very
important because the engine operation at such a low load had been limited to the time of departing
and arriving in port. Slow steaming has become the main stream of shipping for the reduction offuel oil cost, and the continuous operation of the auxiliary blower is sometimes required. The
auxiliary blower generally consists of a centrifugal blower and an induction motor operated at aconstant speed, and it automatically turns ON and OFF with the change of engine scavenging airpressure. Therefore,, the blower has a low efficiency and consumes a comparatively larger amountof electric power, while also requiring periodic maintenance. Although hysteresis, the scavenging
air pressure difference to start and stop the auxiliary blower, is provided, the engine must beoperated by avoiding the blower ON/OFF load range for the reliability of the motor.

3.2

Advantages of Electric-assist Turbocharger

The generator in a hybrid turbocharger can be used as a motor to work instead of an auxiliary
blower by increasing the turbocharger rotational speed (variable speed operation) and increasing
the scavenging air pressure of inlet air to the engine. The advantages compared with the auxiliary
blower are as noted below:(1) Low electric power consumption with high efficiency

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Technical Review Vol. 52 No. 1 (March 2015)39(2) Continuous operation at the optimum scavenging air pressure at any engine load(3) Fuel oil consumption reduction of the engine
Next, the results of verification testing by operating real engines are shown below.

3.3

Test Results

The MET66MAG-VTI hybrid turbocharger is provided with a generator with a maximum
output of 470kW, and it has an electric-assist function to accelerate the turbocharger rotor withexternal electric power. The turbocharger is mounted on a Mitsubishi type 7UEC60LSE-Ecotwo-stroke diesel engine, and operational testing was conducted. The test results of electric-assist
are shown below.
Table 1 shows a comparison of engine fuel oil consumption and consumed electric power at
20% and 25% loads between a conventional auxiliary blower and the electric-assist turbocharger.
At 20% load, the auxiliary blower consumed 86kW of electric power, and generated 0.46bar ofscavenging air pressure. Next, the auxiliary blower was stopped and electric power was supplied tothe motor/generator in the turbocharger. The consumed electric power was 66kW, which was 23%
less than the blower, when the scavenging air pressure became the same 0.46bar. In addition, thefuel oil consumption of the engine with the hybrid turbocharger was reduced. The reason isbelieved to be the lower resistance of the air flow at the same scavenging air pressure and theincreased air flow rate as the turbocharger outlet air did not go through the auxiliary blower.
The authors observed the change in performance by applying higher electric power than theauxiliary blower consumption to the hybrid turbocharger. When 100kW of electric power, which
exceeded the auxiliary blower consumption by 16%, is applied at 20% load operation, thescavenging air pressure was raised to 0.54bar, and the fuel oil consumption of the main engine wasreduced by 5.1 kg/h (1.85 g/kWh). On the other hand, 3.8 kg/h of fuel oil for the diesel generator isneeded to generate the consumed extra 14kW compared with the auxiliary blower. The net fuel oil
consumption reduction shrinks to 1.3 kg/h. The maximum reduction of total fuel oil consumption
by applying what amount of electric power will be clarified in additional testing considering theeffect of engine load, environmental temperature, etc.
Table 1 Results of electric-assist hybrid turbocharger
Auxiliary blower electric power (kW)Assist electric power (kW)Scavenging air pressure (bar G)
Turbocharger rotational speed (rpm)Flow rate change of main engine fuel oil (kg/h)
Flow rate change of diesel generator fuel (kg/h)
Total flow rate change of fuel oil (kg/h)
Converted main engine fuel consumption rate (g/kWh)Change of gas temperature at turbocharger outlet (℃)

20% Load (2760kW)
86－－66
100
0.46
0.46
0.54
5860
62506700
ref-2.8-5.1
ref-3.9+3.8
ref-6.7-1.3
ref-2.4-0.5
ref-3-2725% Load (3450kW)
10379
131
0.66
0.66
0.736880
72507600
ref-1.4-10.6
ref-4.7+5.5
ref-6.1-5.1
ref-1.8-1.5
ref-8-30|4. Electric-assist Turbocharger in Four-stroke Engine
In the case of a four-stroke engine, an auxiliary blower is generally not installed for low-load
operation as air is naturally aspirated in the intake stroke with the descending piston. However, inaddition to the fuel oil consumption increase, the degraded reliability resulting from increased
thermal load of the engine must also be considered under low-load continuous operation.
Furthermore, domestic vessels sometimes cause problems from transient black smoke whenfrequently leaving and arriving in port.
As such, the authors conducted verification testing to understand the effect of electric-assist
on the turbocharger rotor used for a four-stroke engine using a test engine (660kW) of Akasaka
Diesels Limited. Figure 5 shows the high-speed motor installed on the turbocharger. This shows
the general use high-speed motor connected to the turbocharger rotor for the test purposes, and it
will not be sold on the market in this condition. Table 2 shows the change in the fuel oil
consumption ratio when the turbocharger rotor is assisted with the motor at the load of 25% and35%. The results showed a greater reduction in the fuel oil consumption ratio of the engine than theapplied electric power to the motor.

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Technical Review Vol. 52 No. 1 (March 2015)
40Table 2 Change in fuel oil consumption ratio with electric-assist turbocharger

25% Load
184 kW
38% Load
258 kW

Assist electricTurbocharger Boost pressure Fuel consumption
power (Output ratio
rotational(bar G)
reduction ratio
to engine [%])
speed (rpm)
(%)
0 kW
14611
0.20
ref
1.3 kW (0.70%)
16000
0.25
2.7
5.3 kW (2.90%)
18000
0.32
5.70 kW
19240
0.37
ref
3.5 kW (1.40%)
21000
0.45
4.1
5.9 kW (2.30%)
21810
0.49
4.2

Net fuel oil
consumption
reduction ratio (%)
ref2.02.8ref2.7
1.9Figure 5 High-speed motor installed on turbocharger
for four-stroke engine

Next, the engine start up test was conducted by accelerating the turbocharger to the rotational
speed of 3000rpm with the motor before start up to reduce the amount of black smoke generated atengine start up. Figure 6 shows a comparison of particulate concentration in the exhaust gas
between the cases of with and without motor acceleration. The particulate concentration in theexhaust gas was reduced to half or less by turning the turbocharger to pressure the intake air
manifold of the engine before start up.

Figure 6 Particulate concentration in exhaust gas for cases of with and without motor
acceleration at engine start up|5. Development of Electric-assist Turbocharger
If a ship equipped with a hybrid turbocharger also utilizes slow steaming for fuel oil cost
reduction, exhaust heat recovery by generating electricity using a generator integrated in theturbocharger is not often carried out. Rather, the electric assist function, which is efficient under
low-load sailing, will be executed more often. The amount of electric power required to operate theelectric-assist function is almost the same as that of the auxiliary blower, and much less than thegenerated electric power of a hybrid turbocharger. As such, only the electric-assist function allows
a smaller motor and inverter. The authors have developed an electric-assist turbocharger that only
accelerates the turbocharger rotor. The drive shaft, which corresponds to the motor rotor, is directly
connected to the turbocharger rotor. Figure 7 shows an exploded view. The motor has no bearings,

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Technical Review Vol. 52 No. 1 (March 2015)41

which differs from conventional hybrid turbochargers, and lubrication and coupling are notrequired, thereby reducing maintenance costs. A cooling water supply is also unnecessary because
the motor is air cooled by installing it at the inlet side of the compressor. Figure 8 and the upper
part of the top page of this report show the application of this motor installed on the large
MET83MA turbocharger as a test. The turbocharger was verified to be able to start running byelectric power only from a stand still condition, and the stator coil temperature was below theallowable limit even when accelerating the turbocharger rotor with the maximum electric power ona test bench.2
This electric-assist turbocharger provides a high-efficiency assist function substituting a
conventional auxiliary blower by applying minimal changes to the standard turbocharger. In
addition, the motor can be retrofitted to an existing turbocharger. Authors have already completed
the fundamental drawings to convert six turbocharger models from MET48 through MET83 toelectric-assist turbochargers.

Figure 7

Exploded view of electric-assist turbocharger

Figure 8

Drive shaft and coil installed on MET83MA turbocharger|6. Conclusion
The electric-assist turbocharger was verified to reduce fuel oil consumption and black smoke
at engine start up by testing the engine using the hybrid turbocharger with electric-assist function.
The system can supply sufficient pressurized air substituting the auxiliary blower in the two-stroke
engine, and control the turbocharger rotational speed. Further fuel oil consumption reduction andreliability improvement are expected by setting the optimal electric-assist power adjusted to theengine model and operating condition. The turbocharger with electric-assist function only wasdeveloped by connecting the drive shaft with magnets, and a bench test was conducted. Thisturbocharger is small in size and low in cost compared with the hybrid turbocharger, and is
expected to expand future demand with its electric-assist function equal to that of a hybrid
turbocharger. We would like to express special thanks to Akasaka Diesels Limited and Calnetix
Technologies LLC for their cooperation in the testing of the four-stroke engine.

References
1.
2.

NYK Report 2014, Our Course (www.nyk.com/ir/library/nyk/pdf/2014_nykreport_04.pdf)
Shiraishi, K. et al., Electro-assist Turbo for Marine Turbocharged Diesel Engines, Proceedings of ASME
Turbo EXPO 2014, GT2014-25667