THE DELTIC ENGINE

A Seminar Report Submitted By

Name: Varun Sudarshan R

Class: VII Semester
Branch: Mechanical Engineering
Section: C
Registration No: 060909369
Roll No: 133

The Deltic Engine

TABLE OF CONTENTS

TITLE

PAGE

1. Introduction

1.1. What is the Deltic Engine

1.2. History

2. Napier Culverin

2.1. Design

2.2. Design Specifications

3. Napier Deltic
3.1. Design
4. Uses of Deltic

8
8
12

4.1. Naval Service

12

4.2. Railway Use

13

4.3. Reliability in Service

14

5. Turbo-compound Deltic

Dept. of Mechanical and Manufacturing

15

The Deltic Engine

1. Introduction

1.1 What is the Deltic Engine

The Deltic engine, was an opposed piston type of engine that was
developed in the year 1943, with the first working engine created during World
War II. It involves three cylinders arranged in a delta formation with six pistons
moving in opposed directions and following the two stroke cycle which we all
know.
1.2 History
The Deltic engine was designed and produced by the company D. Napier
and Son Limited, which was a British engine and pre Great War automobile
manufacturer and was one of the most important aircraft engine manufacturers in
the early to mid-20th century. Napier began with the development of racing
engines, and when the wars began, created various other powerful engines of
that time.
During World War II Napier worked on diesel aircraft engines. In the 1930s
they licensed the Junkers Jumo 204 for production in England, which they called
the Culverin. The Junkers Jumo 204 was the second in a series of German
aircraft diesel engines which came out in 1932. All the engines used a two-stroke
cycle with six cylinders and twelve pistons, in an opposed piston configuration.
After licensing this engine, Napier created the Culverin in a slightly different
design, but maintaining the same principle of opposed piston configuration.

Dept. of Mechanical and Manufacturing

The Deltic Engine

The idea of the Deltic engine began in 1943 when the British Admiralty set
up a committee to develop a high-power, lightweight diesel engine for Motor
Torpedo Boats. Before this, in the Royal Navy, these boats had been driven by
petrol engines but this fuel is highly flammable, making them vulnerable to fire,
and at a disadvantage compared to the German diesel-powered E-boats (a
torpedo boat). The diesel engines of that time, had poor power-to-weight ratio
and low speed. Before the war, Napier had been working on aviation diesel
designs (licensed versions of the Junkers Jumo 204) and had just created the
Culverins. The Admiralty felt these would be a reasonable starting point for the
larger design they required and commissioned him to design the engines they so
required. Thus, the Deltic engine came into existence by using three Culverins
attached in a delta formation.

Dept. of Mechanical and Manufacturing

The Deltic Engine

2. Napier Culverin
2.1. Design
To understand the design or working of the Deltic engine, it is first
necessary to understand how the Napier Culverin or the Junkers Jumo engine
worked since they were both essentially the same types of engines.

Fig. 1

The Culverin or Jumo engines all used a two-stroke cycle with six
cylinders and twelve pistons, in an opposed piston configuration with two
crankshafts, one at the bottom of the cylinder block and the other at the top,
geared together. Fig. 1 shows a basic Culverin piston cylinder arrangement. The
pistons moved towards each other during the operating cycle. Intake and exhaust
manifolds were duplicated on both sides of the block. There were two camoperated injection pumps per cylinder, each feeding two nozzles, for 4 nozzles
per cylinder in all.
As is typical of two-stroke designs, the engines used fixed intake and
exhaust ports instead of valves, which were uncovered when the pistons reached
a certain point in their stroke. Normally such designs have poor volumetric

Dept. of Mechanical and Manufacturing

The Deltic Engine

efficiency because both ports open and close at the same time and are generally
located across from each other in the cylinder. This leads to poor scavenging of
the burnt charge, which is why valve-less two-strokes generally run smoky and
are inefficient.
This problem was solved to a very large degree through clever
arrangement of the ports. The intake port was located under the "lower" piston,
while the exhaust port was under the "upper". The lower crankshaft ran eleven
degrees behind the upper, meaning that the exhaust ports opened first, allowing
proper scavenging. This system made these two stroke engines run as cleanly
and almost as efficiently as four-stroke engines using valves, but with
considerably less complexity. Fig 2 shows a cut section model of the Culverin
engine.

Fig 2

Dept. of Mechanical and Manufacturing

The Deltic Engine

2.2. Design Specifications

The following are the engine specifications of the Culverin.
General characteristics
* Type: 12-piston 6-cylinder vertically opposed liquid-cooled diesel engine.
* Bore: 4.75 in (120.65 mm)
* Stroke: 8.25 in (209.55 mm)
* Displacement: 1,737 cu in (28.464 L)
* Dry weight: 1,785 lb (809.6 kg)
Components
* Valvetrain: Piston ported
* Fuel system: Fuel injected
* Fuel type: Diesel oil
* Cooling system: Liquid cooled
* Reduction gear: Spur geared, reduction ratio 0.6935:1, right hand tractor
* Starting system: Compressed air starter
Performance
* Power output: 821 hp at 2,050 rpm
* Power-to-weight ratio: 0.46 hp/lb

Dept. of Mechanical and Manufacturing

The Deltic Engine

3. Napier Deltic

Fig 3. A picture depicting the early Deltic engine

3.1. Design
The Napier Deltic engine as stated before was a modified form of the
Culverins. The original Napier Culverin was an opposed piston design. Instead of
each cylinder having a single piston and being closed at one end with a cylinder
head, the elongated cylinder contained two pistons moving in opposite directions
towards the centre as seen before. This negates the need for a heavy cylinder
head. This led to a rather "flat" engine, intended to be buried in the wings of large

Dept. of Mechanical and Manufacturing

The Deltic Engine

aircraft. The Admiralty required a much more powerful engine, so for the added
power Napier took three of their original Culverins and "bolted them together".

Fig 4
The result was a triangle, as in fig 4; the cylinder banks forming the sides,
and tipped by three crankshafts, one at each corner. The crankshafts were
connected with phasing gears to drive one output shaft. Various models of Deltic
engine could be produced with varying numbers of cylinders, though nine and
eighteen cylinders were the most common, having three and six cylinders per
bank respectively.
One of features of the design engine was the way the crankshaft phasing
was arranged to allow for exhaust port lead and inlet port lag. These engines are
called 'uniflow' designs because the flow of gas into and out of the cylinder is one
way, assisted by mild supercharging to improve cylinder exhaust scavenging.

Dept. of Mechanical and Manufacturing

The Deltic Engine

The inlet/outlet valve order is In/Out/In/Out/In/Out going around the triangular

ring.
Earlier attempts at designing such an engine failed because of the
difficulty in arranging the pistons to move in the correct manner, for all three
cylinders in one delta. Napier solved this problem by gearing the crankshafts so
that one of them rotated in the opposite direction to the other two.
In an opposed piston design with no inlet or exhaust valves, and no ability
to vary the port positions, the Deltic design arranged each crankshaft to connect
two adjacent pistons operating in different cylinders in the same plane, using
forked connecting rods, one an 'inlet' piston used to open and close the inlet port,
and the other an 'exhaust' piston in the adjacent cylinder to open and close the
exhaust port.
Crankshaft connecting-rod journals were arranged so that each cylinder's
exhaust piston 'led' its inlet piston by 20 degrees of crankshaft rotation. This
allowed the exhaust port to be opened well before the inlet port, and allowed the
inlet port to be closed after the exhaust port, which led to both good scavenging
of exhaust gas, and good volumetric efficiency for the fresh air charge.

Dept. of Mechanical and Manufacturing

10

The Deltic Engine

Fig 5 showing a cut section of a deltic engine

Dept. of Mechanical and Manufacturing

11

The Deltic Engine

4. Uses of Deltic

4.1. Naval Service

Development began in 1947 and the first Deltic unit was produced in
1950. By January 1952 six engines were available, enough for full development
and endurance trials. An ex-German E-Boat, powered by three Mercedes-Benz
diesel engines, was selected for these trials, since its power units were of
approximately equal power to the new 18 cylinder Deltic engines. Two of the
three Mercedes-Benz engines were replaced with Napier Deltics, the
compactness of the Deltic being graphically illustrated: they were half the size of
the original engines. The Deltic weighed one fifth of its contemporaries of
equivalent power.
Proving successful, Deltic diesel engines became a common power plant
in small and fast naval craft. The Royal Navy used them first in the Dark-class
fast attack craft. Subsequently they were used in a number of other smaller
attack craft. The low magnetic signature lent itself to use in mine countermeasure
vessels and the Deltic was selected to power the Ton-class minesweeper. The
Deltic engine is still in service in the Hunt-class. These versions are de-rated to
reduce engine stress.
Deltic diesels served in MTBs and PT Boats built for other navies.
Particularly notable Was the Norwegian Tjeld or Nasty class, which were also
sold to Germany, Greece, and the United States Navy. Nasty-class boats served
in the Vietnam War, largely for covert operations.

Dept. of Mechanical and Manufacturing

12

The Deltic Engine

Smaller nine cylinder Deltic 9 engines were used as a marine engine,

notably by minesweepers. The Ton-class were powered by a pair of Deltic 18s
and used an additional Deltic 9 for power generation for their magnetic influence
sweep.[3] The Hunt class used three Deltic 9s, two for propulsion and again one
for power generation, this time with a hydraulic power unit integrated as well.

4.2. Railway Use

The 'deltic' engines were used in two types of British rail locomotive:
classes 55 and 23, built in the 1960s - both earned the nom-de-plume or
nickname from the type of engines - "Deltics" and "Baby Deltics" respectively.
The Class 55 used two deltic engines: mechanically blown 18 cylinder
engines , the Class 23 used a single less powerful nine cylinder turbocharged
T9-29 Deltic of 1,100 hp (820 kW).
The British Rail Class 55 is a class of diesel locomotive built between
1961 and 1962 by English Electric. They were designed for the high-speed
express passenger services on the East Coast Main Line between London King's
Cross and Edinburgh. They gained the name "Deltic" from the prototype
locomotive, DP1 Deltic, which in turn was named for its Napier Deltic power
units. 22 locomotives were built and they dominated services on the line until
their withdrawal at the end of 1981. Six locomotives were preserved and are still
running today.

Dept. of Mechanical and Manufacturing

13

The Deltic Engine

The British Rail removed the Class 55 and 23 locomotives due to the
increasing technical problems in the locomotive parts. The main engine problems
were

Fractured cylinder liners from the injector hole, caused by assembly

stresses.

Fractured cylinder liners from the injector hole, caused by electrolytic

corrosion.

Turbocharger bearing failures, caused by exhaust gases leaking through

the labyrinth seals.

Seized pistons, due to poor cooling caused by chemical erosion from

incorrect lubricants.

By the late 1960s BR had drawn up a "National Traction Plan", whose aim
was to rationalise the number and types of diesel locomotives in traffic (and thus
reduce operating costs). Thus the Deltic locomotives or the Deltics in short were
withdrawn between 1968 and 1971.

4.3. Reliability in service

While the Deltic engine was successful and very powerful for its size and
weight, it was a highly-strung unit, requiring careful maintenance. This led to a
policy of unit replacement rather than repair in place. Deltic engines were easily
removed upon breakdown, generally being sent back to the manufacturer for
repair.

Dept. of Mechanical and Manufacturing

14

The Deltic Engine

5. Turbo-compound Deltic

The E.185 or Compound Deltic turbo-compound variant was planned and

a single prototype was built in 1956 and tested in 1957. This capitalised on
Napier's experience with both the Nomad and their increasing involvement with
gas turbines. It used the Deltic as the gas generator inside a gas turbine, with
both a twelve-stage axial compressor and a three stage gas turbine. Unlike the
Nomad, this turbine wasn't mechanically coupled to the crankshaft but merely
drove the compressor. It was hoped to produce 6,000 horsepower, with fuel
economy and power-to-weight ratio "second to none". Predictions by the
engineers closely connected with it were that connecting rod failure would be the
limit on this power, failing at around 5,300 bhp. On test it actually produced 5,600
bhp, before throwing a connecting rod through the crankcase just as predicted.
Naval interest had waned by 1958 in favour of the pure gas turbine, despite its
heavier fuel consumption, and no further development was carried out.

Dept. of Mechanical and Manufacturing

15