|
|
|
Wärtsilä Switzerland Ltd originated in the diesel engine business of Sulzer Brothers in Winterthur which effectively began in 1898 when the Sulzer Brothers signed an agreement with Rudolf Diesel for his new engine technology. Diesel engine manufacture by Sulzer was started in 1903 in Winterthur. Since 1909, licensing has been important for distributing the manufacture of our engines closer to the markets world-wide.
Going forward to 1989, Sulzer established its Diesel Engine & Diesel Power Plant Division as a separate company, MBS Diesel Engines Ltd. It was intended to sell MBS Diesel but that was initially blocked for anti-trust reasons.
In March 1990, the company name was changed to Sulzer Diesel Ltd. In November 1990, the company was renamed New Sulzer Diesel Ltd (NSD) when it was sold by Sulzer to German and Italian shipbuilding groups and NSD management, with the Sulzer keeping a minority shareholding. In April 1997, New Sulzer Diesel Ltd was wholly taken over by Metra Corporation, which merged it with Wärtsilä Diesel Oy to create Wärtsilä NSD Corporation which later became Wärtsilä Corporation. New Sulzer Diesel Ltd was renamed Wärtsilä NSD Switzerland Ltd. The Swiss company was renamed Wärtsilä Switzerland Ltd in 2000.
1903: Sulzer 3D40
1912: Twin Sulzer 4S
1956: Turbocharged Sulzer 9RSAD76
1982: Sulzer 6RLA66
2006: Wärtsilä 14RT-flex96C |
Engine History
The first Sulzer diesel engines were vertical four-stroke engines with blast-air fuel injection and were only used for applications.
1905: The first reversing two-stroke marine engine was developed by Sulzer. It led the way to the first valveless two-stroke engines at sea, two 559 kW Sulzer 4SNo.6a engines in the Italian cargo ship ‘Romagna’ in 1910.
1912: The first ocean-going ship with valveless crosshead type two-stroke engines was the German cargo ship ‘Monte Penedo’, two Sulzer 4SNo.9a engines with a total of 1250 kW.
Developments rapidly followed thereafter with engines for rail traction, submarines, a 1000 mm-bore research engine, a broader range of engine types and sizes for ship propulsion, marine auxiliary duties and land-based power plants, increased power outputs, lowered fuel consumption, and always important, much improved reliability. By the 1920s, Sulzer was a famous name for diesel engines in ships, power plants, and railways around the world.
Airless fuel injection became standard from 1930 in all engine types, greatly improving their efficiency and reducing their maintenance requirements. The next radical step was the development of turbocharging, greatly improving the power concentration of the engines with less weight and less space requirements. The first turbocharged two-stroke diesel engine in normal operation was a Sulzer 6TAD48 engine in 1946 in the power house of the Winterthur works.
In the 1950s, turbocharging became standard in marine low-speed two-stroke engines for ship propulsion. Then began the long series of Sulzer R-type low-speed engines – the RSAD, RD, RND, RND-M and RL types.
A radical change in scavenging from loop to uniflow was made in 1983 with the introduction of the RTA low-speed engines of 380 to 840 mm cylinder bore, increasing to 960 mm in 1994.
In 1981 tests with electronically-controlled fuel injection were begun on a four-cylinder research engine. This led in 1998 to the world’s first large, electronically-controlled low-speed engine with common-rail injection running in the Diesel Technology Center in Oberwinterthur, and the launch of today’s RT-flex common-rail marine engines with the first RT-flex engine entering shipboard service in September 2001.
The world’s largest diesel engines are now the 14-cylinder Wärtsilä RT-flex96C engines of 80,080 kW (108,920 bhp) of which the first entered service in September 2006. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
