Spec: 14 cylinder, 2 stroke, turbocharged diesel engine
Horsepower: 108,920 bhp
Torque: 5,608,310 ft•lbf at 102 rpm
Fuel Consumption: 3.80 liters per second
Weight: 5.1 million pounds
The RTA96 Wärtsilä-Sulzer diesel engine is BIG. So big in fact, that the super ships that this monster powers must be built around it. In a single week of running, this engine will drink enough diesel to fill up an Olympic sized swimming pool. Clearly the operators of this mega engine are not overly concerned about the green movement – so I’m going to suggest using baby seals as a fuel additive.
Let’s talk about rotational inertia. The crankshaft (spinning output shaft of the engine) weighs 600,000 lbs on its own! When the engine is running at its normal speed of 100 rpm, moving this giant crankshaft would require the same rotational energy as spinning a 50 ft Ferris wheel at 374 km/h. The occupants would likely explode from the g forces.
In terms of torque, if you were able to fit RTA96 engine into a standard road car, it would accelerate you from 0 to 100 km/h in 0.15 seconds. In my opinion, such a violent death would be worth every penny required to steal a freight ship engine.
Now it might seem like this engine is a monstrously inefficient beast. Is it? A natural solution would require accumulating some 108,920 horses and put them on a boat. This comes out to be about 109 MILLION pounds worth of horse. Since the engine only weighs 5 million pounds in comparison, the engine is about 2180% more efficient. If we were to use another animal as reference, say an electric eel, you would require 10,892 eels to produce the required amount of electrical energy to match the output of the RTA96. Practical? Maybe not. Super badass? Yes.
Big things rock!
As always send suggestions to w.zochodne@gmail.com.
Photo Captions:
Baby seals: Could improve your engine efficiency by 3%! (maybe)
374 km/h Ferris Wheels: Now an extreme survival sport!
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