Cooling Diesel on Gen Sets

[joan271273]

We have some diesel units installed indoors within a building, this facility is located in areas with design day + 122F. So we would like to cool the fuel on the return path as to improve a bit our performance. Our project owner has asked us if the only way to cool the fuel is with a plate type heat excnager, for example is their a water type heat exchnager to take advantage of our cooling plant.

Any ideas or products out there

 

[catserveng]

There are a number of ways to cool the fuel, Young Radiator and Americool (and many others I'm sure)both offer air to oil coolers, look like industrial radiators. You can use either plate or shell and tube heat exchangers. Depending on where you jacket water cooling radiators are, you can install air to fuel cooler cores in the inlet air streams to the radiator.

Main concern is to get with your engine's manufacturer and get his spec for fuel return maximum restriction.

Hope that helps,

 

[TheBlacksmith]

I'm not sure how much cooling the return fuel will help your performance. The amount of fuel returned is inversely proportional to the genset load and in most cases would take some time to heat the bulk fuel to the point of noticable performance loss. But, if I had a dollar for every installation when the combustion air intake and/or cooling air intake was severely restricted or overheated and had an immediate and dramatic effect on performance ... lets not even talk about excessive exhaust back pressure. Otherwise, contacting your OEM or Distributor for a suitable fuel cooler is the best advice.

 

[dicer]

If you are in an area where the sun beats on the storage tank it wouldn't accomplish much by cooling the return.
Depends on how cool you want it? You could also use a refrigeration unit to cool the incoming fuel.

 

[joan271273]

The system is using U/G tanks,the installation is a mission critical (7 x 24 operation) and the periods were we will be over +122F might be 3 weeks, but with operations above +111F for periods over 3 months. So the basis of design caals for fuel cooling, we are just looking for alternatives that "off the shelf" to taken advantage of our chilled water plant and provide the cooling.

 

[catserveng]

If yor engine has a high return rate, and many engines today use fuel for injector and even cooling the electronics, then a fuel cooler is pretty important. Standard #2 diesel is usually ok to an engine up to 150 degrees F, but most manufacturers will start derating power output at 100 degrees F.

If you are using Ultra Low Sulphur fuel, then fuel lubricity can be a problem at fuel temperatures above 100 degrees F. There are a lot of varibles, and depending on your fuel system design this coould a minor issue or a big problem.

We install shipboard systems using shell and tube HE's, if you have a chilled water supply, use an appropriately sized heat exchanger with seals suitable for fuel, such as Viton. You will need to get with your engine manufacturer and get the typical heat rejection to the fuel, and the maximum allowable return line restriction to size the HE correctly. We use Sendure heat exchangers for this in the marine market.

 

[patprimmer]

Can you run a strategically placed coil of copper pipe of appropriate diameter in the storage tank and run your tower water through the coil. The water flow could be controlled by a thermostat.

Otherwise as mentioned by others any water to oil heat exchanger with seals to suit your fuel. The fuel won't know if the heat exchanger is a marine engine oil cooler or a hydraulically operated machine oil cooler, so long as the size is adequate and the seals resist your fuel.

Regards

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