Preliminary Control Design by Simulation of a Marine Engine Turbine

Simulation can be useful to the marine engine designer in identifying necessary improvements. During the initial design of a complex engine, even inaccurate physical modelling can give important information to quickly change configuration and parameters, if necessary, without waiting for experimental tests. This paper considers supercharged diesel engines that are widely used in marine applications. It reports the preliminary design of the speed control system for one turbine of a more complex engine based on a sequential turbine architecture. The authors show how to improve a speed PID controller by using a simplified model to represent an engine turbine in simulation. An accurate physical representation is not required to choose the control scheme and set the parameters. Namely, the specifications on the minimum turbine speed and the limitation of speed oscillations are met, and performance is improved compared to a first control scheme.