Overview
Concerned the development of a gas fuelled two stroke marine diesel engine. Such an engine would meet the environmental restrictions of international maritime operations and provide the shipowner with an engine with financial benefits.
The objective of HELIOS was to develop a marine low speed two-stroke gas Diesel engine research platform that is realistically sized for direct drive marine propulsion, and which has an emission footprint which compared to present Diesel engine technology is reduced as follows:
- CO2: 20-30%
- NOx: 10-15%
- SOx : 90-100%
- PM: 60-70%.
Since 99% of the world commercial fleet is powered by diesel engines, marine gas Diesel engine technology can greatly contribute to the greening of waterborne transportation.
The potential of the HELIOS project was further enhanced by the possibility of retrofit of gas Diesel technology onto existing ships in service, since the needed modifications in components are limited and do not need removal or reinstallation of vessel's engine. The research platform was the basis for a new generation of high pressure gas injection engines operating on compressed natural gas (CNG) and/or liquefied natural gas (LNG), using Diesel type and partly pre-mixed combustion principles. The new generation of engines should be fully electronically controlled and have power ratings from 5000 to 100 000 kW.
Cooperation of nine partners. The partners develop specialised technology, which are being tested at a test engine of the coordinator, MAN Diesel Turbo. The project was organised in 12 work packages.
Funding
Results
The HELIOS project was a large and successful project in silicon photonics. The development of building blocks led to results exceeding the original specifications and moreover positioning the laboratories at the leading edge of the state of the art in the field. Even if it has been challenging to assemble these buildings blocks to fabricate demonstrators as the technology was more complex, advanced transceivers have been obtained. Three different ways of integration the photonic devices with electronic devices on a wafer to wafer basis were pushed with some success. With the work on innovative devices, amorphous silicon modulator exhibited performances far beyond the original
expectations.
Even if lasing with Si nanocrystals has not been achieved, guided electroluminescence from slot waveguides and micro-ring resonators has been observed. CMOS-compatible 2.5D III-V/Si VCSELs were highly-efficient optically-pumped and lasing with electrical pumping will be soon demonstrated. Moreover experimental demonstration of optical coupling of these VCSEL with silicon micro-guides has been achieved.