Diesel mechanical drive

The term diesel-mechanical drive is used in the context of large vehicles for a type of drive in which the power of a diesel engine is transmitted directly or via a gearbox directly to the wheels or, in the case of ships, to the propeller.

Areas of application

Depending on the vehicle type, there are limits to the diesel-mechanical drive as the power increases . With increasing power, the weight, size and price of the transmission increase so much that other solutions are more sensible.

For this reason, found mainly in locomotives of the diesel-hydraulic and diesel-electric propulsion use. The transmission limit for motor vehicles is currently around 1500 kW. Short-term peak performances from racing are over 8000 kW.

For the geared propulsion systems of ships, the limit is currently around 25 MW continuous output per drive train. Here, several motors act via a gearbox on the propeller shaft and, if necessary, on other gearbox outputs (e.g. hydraulic or water pumps and / or generators ). Directly driven plants, d. H. without gear stage, are currently in use with outputs of over 84 MW. The technical performance limit is set by the performance of the drive motors.

Examples

• Stadler Regio-Shuttle RS1
• LINT 41

literature

• F. Sass, C. Bouche, A. Leitner (Eds.): Dubbels Taschenbuch für den Maschinenbau . Volume 2, 12th edition, Springer Verlag Berlin Heidenberg GmbH, Berlin 1963.