Common Rail Fuel Injection: L’Orange’s Solution to Reduced Fuel Consumption and Exhaust Emissions

To meet the exhaust emission requirements implemented by U. S. EPA, UIC, IMO and others, it is not only necessary to develop new engines and combustion systems that meet these requirements, but also to update existing engines with low emission technologies. The electronic common rail fuel system has positive advantages over conventional methods, including increased fuel efficiency and limited exhaust emissions and smoke. Since only one compact high pressure common rail pump is needed, instead of one jerk pump per cylinder, to adapt to the existing engine designs, the only challenge is to fit the injectors into the existing cylinder heads. This publication evaluates the potential impacts of this new technology on emissions and fuel consumption. It outlines component design in detail and illustrates some specific production issues. One unique retrofit proposal, focused towards existing engines, will be a low emissions kit supplied by L’Orange and Fluid Mechanics for application on EMD 645 and 710 engines. These two-stroke engines have been built since 1965 and more than 50,000 exist today, mostly on large locomotives in the NAFTA region. The retrofit kit is backed by L’Orange’s knowledge and experience in the design and production of over 150,000 common rail fuel injectors supplied to MTU and Detroit Diesel series 4000 engines.