Caterpillar 3600 series HFO

[DWGatSY]

I am working on a design proposal for a small cargo vessel. We are considering using a Cat 3606 as the main engine, but the owner requires the main engine to burn heavy fuel oil. Does anyone have any experience operating the CAT 3600 series on HFO, or could someone direct me to any publications with information about operating this engine series on HFO?

Thanks for the help.

 

[jmw]

Caterpillar themselves are a very good source of information.

Heavy fuel oil operation requires the installation of a good fuel oil system with centrifuges etc. to remove catalytic fines and water, settlement tanks, and a fuel heater module to control the fuel heating such that the viscosity of the fuel at the injectors is optimal.

Gven the quality issues surrounding marine fuel oil my advise is also to fit a digital viscometer to the bunkering system to check fuel quality as it is received.

Usually HFO operation requires MGO as well which is used for start up until there is suffieicnt steam from exhaust heat recovery to enable fuel heating. The option is to use a combined heater which includes electric and steam heaters. This allows the MGO operation to be minimised.

Note: the gap between MGO and HFO prices is reducing. This is possibly a bit artificial but none the less, real. This means that it is economical to run that little bit longer on MGO while waiting for sufficient steam for HFO instead of a far more complex fuel skid with electric heaters.

This web site is particularly useful:

http://www.chl.chalmers.se/~ove/cbt_program/cbt_program.htm

And I recommend you visits the webs ites of some of the fuel module suppliers, mostly in Europe, such as CCJensen (Denmark), AuraMarine (Finland), MAS, Kupke and Wolf (KuWo), GEA Westphalia (all in Germany), Alfa Laval (Sweden), who are the major suppliers.

PS, for viscosity systems information or advice, visit my web link below.

JMW

http://www.viscoanalyser.com

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[enginebob]

The 3600 series engines can be outfitted for HFO.