Home | Business News | Browse by Publication | O | OEM Off-Highway

It's not what you think.

Article Excerpt
It's not what you think

by Chad Elmore

Installing two diesel engines can create a more efficient machine.

Engines have improved immensely over the last decade, but with end-users and OEMs faced with high fuel prices and ever-tightening emissions regulations, alternative methods are being sought that will glean more work from a gallon of diesel fuel. We're seeing hydraulic or electric assistance installed to work with the compression ignition engine, and in some cases that engine has been removed completely. Bolting a second diesel engine to the chassis might, at first glance, seem to be heading in the wrong direction.

Recently Grove and Krone have done just that, and the two machines actually fall in-line with the efficiency goal because of their two compression-ignition engines.

Unique advantages

In the history of on- and off-road equipment, twin-engined machines aren't unusual (see sidebar) -- although saving fuel wasn't always the primary reason for their installation. A pair of engines was generally employed in heavy equipment to give the machine the extra horsepower and torque to do its job.

Caterpillar and Terex have offered twin-engined scraper models for years. On a scraper, one engine drives the front wheels (the tractor) while the other runs the scraper and pushes the machine through a heavy loading application.

The new Grove TM500E-2 truck crane from Manitowoc uses two different engines to great advantage: one diesel is rated for off-highway use, while the other is an on-highway powerplant. Both engines are certified to current United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) emissions standards (Tier 3 and EPA 2007 regulations).

In the Grove application, each engine is controlled from the respective cab and is completely separate in its function. The chassis engine is controlled from a chassis cab, and the other engine is controlled from the cab on the crane superstructure. The superstructure cab features armrest-mounted electric dual-axis controllers. In addition, the...

View this article FREE - Now for a Limited Time, try Goliath Business News
Free for 3 Days!