A Methanol Fueled Marine Engine Simulator for Fast Craft Applications

The paper presents a thermodynamic simulator of a marine four-stroke medium speed engine, fueled by methanol. The study stems from the current lack of information on methanol marine engines, whereas there is a growing interest in this type of alternative fuel, also in the maritime field. The numerical model, developed in Matlab©-Simulink© language and structured in a modular form, is derived from a natural gas marine engine simulator, developed by the authors and already described and validated in a previous research study. In the methanol engine model, for the in cylinder phenomena calculation, the zero dimensional actual cycle approach is adopted, while the turbocharger compressor and turbine are simulated by their performance maps. After a short description of the original natural gas simulator, the paper reports the variations introduced for adapting the engine model to the methanol fuel mode. The obtained outcomes are compared with data referring to a dual fuel natural gas engine, available in the literature. This comparison, between the simulated results of the two fuel modes of the engine, aims at highlighting the differences in efficiency and carbon dioxide emissions, in order to improve the environmental impact of the medium and high-speed vessels.