Twin Engine - Twin Calorifier?

[Simon R]

I've been trying to figure out how to take heat from two engines. All the descriptions of calorifier systems I have seen assume a single engine. A colorifier with two coils is one answer, but suppose I want to feed the central heating from the top coil, and put heat into the bottom coil? Twin calorifiers seems an elegant solution. I must be reinventing the wheel, how is it normally done?

[Tony Brooks]

I've been trying to figure out how to take heat from two engines. All the descriptions of calorifier systems I have seen assume a single engine. A colorifier with two coils is one answer, but suppose I want to feed the central heating from the top coil, and put heat into the bottom coil? Twin calorifiers seems an elegant solution. I must be reinventing the wheel, how is it normally done?

 

 

The boats I have been involved with used just one engine to feed the calorifier, but I suppose you could fit a pair of three port changeover valves so you could feed a single coil from either engine in case the one elected to heat the water packed up.

 

If you had another pump I suppose you could pas the calorifier water through two heat exchangers (one from each engine).

 

I suspect you may well be able to feed via a pair of simple T unions to combine and split the flow, but if one engine boiled it would help overheat the other. This would need careful experimentation and monitoring to make sure it worked well. I doubt it would if the header tanks were at different levels of the pressure caps were at different pressures.

 

I say keep it simple.

 

 

Tony Brooks

[Simon R]

I say keep it simple.

 

Yes, that makes sense. I've just done this calculation: very approximately, a typical internal combustion engine puts about 1/3 of its heat into propulsion, 1/3 into the water jacket and 1/3 into the exhaust. So, if the engine is producing, say, 50hp, then another 50hp is heating water. That's about 37kW! One should be enough, it just seems a pity to waste all that energy.

[Simondrains]

Why don't you get a calorifier made up with three coils?

 

I betchacan.

 

Rgds

Si

[smileypete]

I've been trying to figure out how to take heat from two engines. All the descriptions of calorifier systems I have seen assume a single engine. A colorifier with two coils is one answer, but suppose I want to feed the central heating from the top coil, and put heat into the bottom coil? Twin calorifiers seems an elegant solution. I must be reinventing the wheel, how is it normally done?

Hi,

 

Is this two main engines or a main engine and auxiliary?

 

I'd expect a single engine running under load may generate far more heat than a calorifier coil can transfer to it's contents.

 

cheers,

Pete.