The Wärtsilä Company is one of the world leaders in the field of marine diesel engines of high unit capacity. Since the 1990s it has developed a line of Wärtsilä Sulzer RTA96 C marine engines. These are two-stroke marine diesel engines.

The diameter of the cylinder of this marine engine is of 960 mm and the piston stroke’s is of 2.5 meters! Displacement of the cylinder in this diesel engine is 1820 liters. We should mention that that the order of hundreds of these marine diesel engines in the 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12-cylinder version has been installed on container ships. The vessel with a capacity of 8 – 10 thousand tons, driven by a single ship diesel generator safely develops 25 knots (more than 46 kilometers per hour).

The first ship with engine of the Wärtsilä Sulzer RTA96 C series (11-cylinder diesel) appeared in 1997. It was produced by the Japanese company Diesel United. And in 2002, the Finnish designer announced the availability of 14-cylinder marine diesel Wartsila Sulzer.

Now let’s say more of its records. The Wärtsilä Sulzer RTA96 C reaches 108, 920 horsepower. The capacity of a marine diesel generator is 25 thousand 480 liters. Diesel power per liter is extremely low – approximately 4.3 “horses” per liter.

You might say, that’s a really strange thing, because in the modern automotive turbo diesels, engineers have learned to “withdraw” from liters over 100 horsepower. However, the relatively-low power at such a gigantic scale selected is not casual. Large Wartsila – Sulzer marine engines work with dignity, slowly (by the standards of conventional internal combustion engine) by typing in their giant “light” air.

The basic material for the construction of these marine diesel engines has become a traditional cast iron and steel.

So the work and talent of the creators of the Wärtsilä marine diesel engines deserve the utmost respect. Meanwhile, the Wärtsilä team of designers is working on a more powerful marine ICE. Already there are references on the development of the 18-cylinder version of its heavy-duty marine diesel.