Marine diesel operators around the globe and throughout all sectors need to use greener fuels — and that features the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD). According to one of many largest suppliers of marine diesel engines to the Navy and Coast Guard, Fairbanks Morse Defense (FMD), the DOD is exploring choices to transition its marine engine know-how to low-lifecycle carbon fuels (LLCF) reminiscent of methanol, ammonia, hydrogen, and biodiesel. Now FMD has now entered a Memorandum of Understanding with Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL).
Under the MOU, the events will collaborate on the event and integration of different gasoline applied sciences geared toward decreasing the marine engine’s reliance on fossil fuels. FMD will incorporate the analysis and growth carried out at ORNL, the Department of Energy’s largest multidisciplinary laboratory, into its engine design know-how.
“Oak Ridge is a leader in decarbonization research, clean energy technology development, and defense manufacturing,” mentioned Moe Khaleel, the laboratory’s affiliate director for nationwide safety sciences. “Collaborating with a trusted national security partner like Fairbanks Morse Defense will enable us to translate our scientific expertise into deployable technologies for the Department of Defense.”
Under the phrases of the MOU, ORNL will leverage its analysis and growth experience, whereas FMD will contribute its energy and propulsion design and manufacturing proficiency to advertise using LLCFs in marine engines. FMD will outline the efficiency and sturdiness necessities and design testing parts, whereas ORNL will present analysis help in combustion methods for LLCFs, high-temperature supplies, additive manufacturing, elastomer compatibility, and corrosion.
“As climate change impacts our global waterways, these changing and unpredictable impacts directly affect our ability to protect the freedom of the seas,” mentioned George Whittier, FMD CEO. “We’re fully committed to supporting the Department of Defense’s 2030 decarbonization goals with fuel and engine technologies that will create a more sustainable future for the Navy, and we look forward to working with ORNL to explore these possibilities.”
Additional partnership intentions from the MOU embrace the next:
- Collaborating on program growth to establish and safe exterior analysis and growth alternatives.
- Establishing a single-cylinder analysis engine laboratory devoted to exploring breakthroughs in areas reminiscent of secure gasoline dealing with, LLCF combustion technique, and experimental engine {hardware} configurations.
- Supporting different gasoline combustion growth technique by way of modeling research that make use of superior analytics reminiscent of computational fluid dynamics simulations utilizing high-performance computing assets.