OREANDA-NEWS. April 11, 2012. Certification tests of TEM18V shunting diesel locomotive equipped with a Wartsila engine are completed with success at Bryansk Engineering Plant (BMZ, a part of CJSC Transmashholding).

Preliminary and joint acceptance and certification tests proved that TEM18V-001 diesel locomotive parameter and performance comply with the Technical requirements and the railroad transport safety standard.

The TEM18V diesel locomotive is designed on the base of TEM18DM locomotive. A number of modifications are implemented in the basic design thus allowing one to state new consumer properties of the machine. The TEM18V is equipped with a new and more reliable diesel engine, a telemetry driver vigilance system. This provides for a more steady fleet operation, locomotive downtime cutting and improves the operational safety in the locomotive. The TEM18V with an average operating load is by almost 30 per cent more efficient as compared with ChME3 locomotives.

A diesel-driven generator of Wartsila production with a capacity of 882 kW at 1000 r/min is used in TEM18V shunting diesel locomotive.

A new air compressor is installed in the locomotive and a variable speed hydraulic coupling is mounted on the fan shaft of the cooling box. This ensures that the main fan rotating speed can be changed smoothly thus enhancing the gear-box reliable performance.

 For the first time they used at BMZ the main fan wheel made of plastic in the shunting diesel locomotive; the “Gulfstream” system is applied to preheat the engine heat-transfer agent, in order to maintain the optimum temperature of the heat-transfer agent with the engine shut-down. This allows for the fuel economy during the locomotive downtime in winter. To heat the driver cabin, an independent heating system is used providing for the comfortable operating conditions of the locomotive crew.

The TEM18V-001 technical and economic performance achieved during the service-power run when operating under shunting, pick-up and hump conditions at Bryansk-Lgovskiy station set this locomotive apart from other shunting diesel locomotives as far as the fuel efficiency concerns. The fuel-consumption rate at the standard handling is 288 g/kWh. It is expected that as soon as the joint Russian and Finnish (Transmashholding – Wartsila) project implementation starts on the state-of-the-art diesel engines manufacturing for railway and marine transport application new diesel-driven generators will be used also in other diesel locomotives of domestic production thus providing for a higher power-unit reliability as well as enhanced locomotive running qualities.