Swiss marine power company WinGD has revealed that it will record the first installation of its new X-S short-stroke engine design following successful factory acceptance tests with engine builder Dalian Marine Diesel.
As informed, following the trials, the six-cylinder, 62cm-bore 6X62-S2.0 engine will be installed on a pulp carrier being built for a Chinese owner at COSCO Dalian shipyard.
The X-S series succeeds the RT-flex50 and RT-flex58 engines and is available in 52cm and 62cm bore sizes, for a range of fuel options including traditional diesel or dual-fuel liquefied natural gas (LNG), methanol and ammonia operation.
“The factory test for our first X-S engine confirms that this new generation of short-stroke engines delivers outstanding value for ship operators, providing significant operating cost advantages while enabling high efficiency in compact ship designs. We anticipate strong uptake as the global fleet of merchant vessels using short-stroke engines is renewed and prepares for future regulation demands,” WinGD Director Sales, Volkmar Galke said.
According to WinGD, the X-S combination of shorter stroke length and higher engine speeds allows smaller propellers to generate similar power to long-stroke engines of similar cylinder bore.
The compact design is suitable for vessels that operate in shallow drafts or need a lower main deck or engine room height, according to WinGD.
The existing fleet of short-stroke engine users includes container feeders, car carriers, multipurpose cargo vessels, ro-ro/con-ro vessels and several others.
For dual-fuel X-S engines, intelligent control by exhaust recycling (iCER) could allow vessels to reduce fuel consumption and meet Tier III NOx in both gas and diesel modes without separate selective catalytic reduction (SCR) while reducing methane slip when using LNG, WinGD stated.
The first installation of an iCER-equipped X-S engine is currently under preparation for a 7,000 CEU pure car/truck carrier (PCTC).
Those X62DF-S engines will also feature WinGD’s variable compression ratio (VCR) technology, to allow further efficiency improvements by dynamically optimizing engine compression ratio for the fuel used, engine load, ambient conditions and other parameters.