INDIAN RAILWAYS MAINTENANCE MANUAL FOR DIESEL LOCOMOTIVES - PART 72
Document No:
Chapter –13 Technological Advancements
Version No: 1.0-d0
Date Issued: dd/mm/yyyy
Document Title: MANUAL MAINTENANCE FOR DIESEL LOCOMOTIVES
Revised 2013
Printed: 2015/03/08
Page 280 of 303
consumption. The first Diesel Loco equipped with “Electronic Fuel Injection (EFI)” was turned out at Diesel Loco
Shed, Alambagh for operational service in September, 2011. This was the first ever retro fitment of Electronic Fuel
Injection System on the ALCO loco in the world. It consists of an electronically controlled 16mm plunger diameter
Fuel Injection Pump supplying fuel to the injector via a high-pressure pipe. Fuel injection is controlled by solenoid
valve which is connected with Engine Control Unit (ECU). ECU is a microprocessor based control system which
acquires data regarding the operating condition of the diesel engine and makes an intelligent assessment regarding
the injection process. Tender specifications for bulk procurement through DMW, Patiala have been prepared for
procurement action. Governor, OSTA and control rack are the major components that gets eliminated from a
conventional pump line nozzle loco.
b)
Reliability Engineering: In today’s scenario it is imperative to have scientific analysis of failures for facilitating
decision making with respect life of components, vendor evaluation, design validation, etc, for reliability
improvement. Reliability based engineering analysis takes time to build up but has immense potential for IR. For
this purpose, a Centre for Reliability & Integrated Systems Engineering (C.RISE) has been set up in Motive Power
Directorate of RDSO. Reliability Centre will lead to a paradigm shift in failure analysis of components and would
help to base analysis on the established concepts of reliability engineering.
A server has been located in the reliability center on which, a specialize software called “X Fracas” has been
loaded. Shortly, Zonal Railways will be able to access this server to start updating failure data in an incidence
form. Reliability center can be accessed through internet on the address “www.rdsoreliabilitycenter.org”
c)
Design and Development of Common Rail Electronic Direct Injection Fuel System.(CReDI): CReDI is second
generation Electronic Fuel Injection System which leads to substantial reduction in specific fuel consumption and
present levels of emissions. CReDI fuel system consists of a low pressure and high pressure fuel system. Salient
feature of this system is that there are only two reciprocating 4 cylinder inline high pressure pumps which maintain
a high fuel pressure for injection, approximately 1600 bar ,in the fuel common rail. The injectors are solenoid
operated, controlled through an interfaced ECU with traction excitation control. Governor, OSTA, FIP and control
rack are the major components that gets eliminated from a conventional pump line nozzle loco. RDSO is currently
developing a CReDI system for fitment on ALCO and EMD 710 G3B diesel engines.
d)
Design and development of Natural Gas based engine for Diesel Loco: RDSO has taken a project for design
and development of a Natural gas based diesel loco. Cost of natural gas per Mega joule of energy is approximately
50% of the cost of diesel. Thus, there is 50% reduction in the cost of diesel fuel. Also the emissions of smoke,
particulate matter and NOx are reduced greatly. With diesel prices getting deregulated and abundance of world’s
reserves of natural gas this technology is worth pursuing. RDSO has proposed a high pressure direct injection of
gas with micro pilot injection of diesel fuel for ignition as it is expected to give maximum displacement of diesel
fuel during operations on energy basis. The loco will be built on a dual multi loco concept with a cryogenic LNG
tank and conversion battery on the rear loco. The design is expected to give a lead of 1000 kms before refueling
and can thus be used on closed circuit routes to start with, till the time technology gets matured and numbers of
these locos increase over IR.
e)
Design and development of a Miller Cycle Turbocharger: Miller cycle technology works on the principle of
using a higher boost to meet air requirements in combustion chamber in a smaller time window. This enables to
eliminate the negative work being done by piston at present in the compression stroke. Further higher boost
pressures achieve to provide a higher swirl and preparation of better homogenous air fuel mixture for combustion.
Miller cycle TC is expected to give fuel saving benefits upto 2% along with NOx reduction. The solution will be
retrofitable on existing locos. To suit the optimized design of Miller cycle TC suitable adaptation of design on
camshaft shall also be done on the air and exhaust cam.
f)
Design and Development of a Gas Turbine based 8.3 MW Loco: It is planned to develop a high horsepower
gas turbine based loco for heavy-haul and long haul goods train operations for shortly coming up dedicated freight
corridors of Indian Railways. The need for development of high horse power gas turbine base loco is mainly due
to availability of large reserves of Natural Gas (NG) in India (with new finding of source being reported regularly),
which facilitate the easy availability and self dependency of combustible fuel. Additionally the current market price
of NG is much lower than Diesel price presently in use for traction power to haul existing freight trains. This make
it all the more important to go for development of a high horsepower loco running on alternate fuel .The additional
benefit offered by gas turbine locos are more than 50% reduction in exhaust emissions as compared to present day
diesel locos running in Indian railways. The operational and maintenance costs will be less due to less rotating
parts. Gas turbine loco offer best power to weight ratio for a power generator i.e. it is possible to generate 12000 hp
only with gas turbine technology
g)
Development of Electronic Unit Injector System for EMD: At par with Alco injection system, an Electronic
Unit Injector system is being developed for the EMD 710 G3B engines with the following broad objectives: -
• Reduced NO
x
emissions
• Reduced Black Smoke emissions
• Reduced fuel consumption
• Improvement in reliability of diesel engine by having restriction on the peak firing pressures.
• On Board Diagnosis potential
Draft