World biggest engine

[King of Dings]

I once stood next to one of those under test at MAN in Germany.

I think they're called Cathedral engines because of their size, used for ships and electricity plants.

The energy coming off this thing and was incredible. Not noisy, or rattly, it was just like an earthquake under the fee, the ground felt like it was actually moving.

Amazing. You can touch it while running it’s warm, and you can feel all the movement going on inside. It’s just an incredible experience to see one running.

What a great post.

[The_Doc]

The St Germans Pumping station is located in Lincolnshire and basically pumps water out of the fens as they are mostly under the level you would expect for the "water table"

The current pump there can clear 70 metric tonnes of water, per second, built in 1934




The new one, presently under constuction, will be able to pump 100tonnes/sec

[Austin.J]

Do they do a VTEC version?

[King Herald]

Trevelyan said:

King Herald said:

My compressors put out 1600cfm, at 2000psi, and are driven by an 800hp electric motor, so I claim biggest air compressors on Pistonheads.

Possibly. You've certainly got the edge on pressure, but I'll see your compressors and raise you by 4 Ingersoll Rand Centac compressors. Each is capable of producing 7000 cfm, and is driven by a (IIRC) 1500hp electric motor fed directly at 6.6kV from a main electrical substation. We used to use a lot of compressed air mind..

Good grief, what do you use that much air for??? What pressure is it at?

[thinfourth2]

King Herald said:

Trevelyan said:

King Herald said:

My compressors put out 1600cfm, at 2000psi, and are driven by an 800hp electric motor, so I claim biggest air compressors on Pistonheads.

Possibly. You've certainly got the edge on pressure, but I'll see your compressors and raise you by 4 Ingersoll Rand Centac compressors. Each is capable of producing 7000 cfm, and is driven by a (IIRC) 1500hp electric motor fed directly at 6.6kV from a main electrical substation. We used to use a lot of compressed air mind..

Good grief, what do you use that much air for??? What pressure is it at?

They are used to power brian blessed

[gingerpaul]

thinfourth2 said:

King Herald said:

Trevelyan said:

King Herald said:

My compressors put out 1600cfm, at 2000psi, and are driven by an 800hp electric motor, so I claim biggest air compressors on Pistonheads.

Possibly. You've certainly got the edge on pressure, but I'll see your compressors and raise you by 4 Ingersoll Rand Centac compressors. Each is capable of producing 7000 cfm, and is driven by a (IIRC) 1500hp electric motor fed directly at 6.6kV from a main electrical substation. We used to use a lot of compressed air mind..

Good grief, what do you use that much air for??? What pressure is it at?

They are used to power brian blessed

[tati25]

Thanks XitUp, addams and mackie1!

That's a very elegant ship for cargo, don't you thing? I'm used to see old smokey ones, those are very stream line and the blue is very pretty. Obviously it's what it has hidden that interests us here, but i couldn't help to point out the design of the ship.

This has turn out a great topic. Amazing engines!

[BigRichi]

I used to work for Maersk....all be it very briefly.....and the scale of these things is unbelievable when your standing next to them.

I was on Glasgow Maersk which had a 12 cylinder engine similar to these...made by hyundai if I remember right with approx 1 metre bore by 3 metre stroke and 3 big bloody huge turbos, maybe 6 foot each in height.

i remember on my first trip doing a crankshaft space inspection when we were in Dubai. Being a cadet i was sent in to experience it first hand! 40 degrees in Dubai...50 in the engine room and higher in the space which had only been cooling for a few hours. a very scary experience actually standing on an oil covered crank peering straight up the cylinder.

wish i was back there now :-(

had a few photos...i'll see if i can dig them out

[Talksteer]

BigRichi said:

i remember on my first trip doing a crankshaft space inspection when we were in Dubai. Being a cadet i was sent in to experience it first hand! 40 degrees in Dubai...50 in the engine room and higher in the space which had only been cooling for a few hours. a very scary experience actually standing on an oil covered crank peering straight up the cylinder.

I'd definitely want to be holding the keys to the lock off device (assuming there was one) while I was hanging out in the crankshaft

[dave_s13]

dirty boy said:

7,536 litres per hour at it's most efficient setting!

Let's say it does Dover to New York, that's about 4,000 miles

Let's say it averages 25mph

That's 160 hours (nearly 7 days)

In order to complete the journey you'd need 1.2m litres of fuel on board.

So the diesel alone is going to cost £1m!! How big are the fuel tanks!

So, let's assume they have 11,000 containers on board.

Split the fuel between them, that's only about £100 per container.


When you start working through the figures, it's easy to see, that doing 1 transatlantic trip per month with 11,000 containers on, the ship can start to pay for itself quite quickly, even burning £1m of fuel each trip.

Using your flawed, but still interesting to read , mathematics, I estimate it would take roughly 69.4 days to "fill er up" at my local tescos, which takes about 5 minutes to dispense 60 litres of diesel at 99.9p......

Your hand would get bloody tired.


LOL @ Brian Blessed comment