The Cummins KTA38GC for Gas Compression: An International Effort

Cummins recognized a sales growth opportunity in the gas compression market place in 2001. Natural Gas Engine Engineering then started developing the smallest displacement engines in the product line first. These are engines in the 37 to 225 kilowatt range and were introduced successfully into the market place over the last four years. Two years ago, the next step up in horsepower, the 19 liter, inline six cylinder KTA 19GC engine at 313 kilowatt was released for production. Marketing then determined that the 450 to 670 kilowatt market was underserved and decided to develop the V12 version of the KTA 19GC, the KTA38GC, to fill this need. It was recognized early in the program that the engine needed to be simple and robust because engine uptime is at a premium in the higher horsepower segments of this market. Thus, simple, robust and proven components were chosen for the engine. The project team started with the KTA38 diesel engine. The team then added the KTA19GC power cylinder components. Next, an ignition system, air/ratio control system and an electronic integrated throttle/governor system were added. These were all “off the shelf” components. When adding these components, an emphasis was placed on simplicity, user friendliness, and self diagnostics with or without a laptop computer. The engine development team was located in Columbus, IN and Clovis, NM, the design team was located in Daventry, England (the final manufacturing location) and Columbus, IN and the analysis team in Pune, India. In addition, our lead customer and distributor, both located in Texas, were closely involved in the project and added considerably to its success. The efforts of these five locations were coordinated in Columbus, IN.