Engine room
The engine room is usually the space in a vehicle in which machines or units are located. In buildings there are large machines in machine halls or machine houses.
shipbuilding
Every larger ship has several engine rooms. In the case of inland vessels and coasters , the number is usually limited to two engine rooms (main engine room with generators) and a bow thruster. The arrangement is very different, depending on the type, construction and size of the ship. Nowadays, the engine rooms are usually located in the rear part of the ship's hull. With this arrangement, a relatively short drive shaft can be used, which reduces stress and wear.
The engine rooms of a container ship can be divided roughly as follows:
- Emergency fire pump room
- In the front under the forecastle , at the furthest distance from the main engine room, is the emergency fire pump. A fire extinguishing pump whose pump pressure is so high that the water column in the rear deckhouse, which is often 200 meters away, is sufficient to supply it with extinguishing water over its entire height.
- Emergency generator room
- The emergency generator, which has to take over the entire general backup power supply in the event of a power failure , is usually at the top of the deckhouse behind the bridge. The emergency batteries are also located here. If the normal power supply from generators fails, the emergency generator takes over the emergency supply. If the emergency generator fails, the emergency batteries take over the emergency lighting, the communication system and some parts of the bridge monitoring.
- Steering gear room
- The steering gear room contains the steering gear and its monitoring.
- Main engine room
- The engines, filters, pumps, etc. required for propulsion of the ship are in the main engine room.
- Generator room
- The diesel generators , pumps, filters, etc. required to generate electricity are located in the generator room .
- Separator room
- The separators required for cleaning all oils are located in the separator room. (Diesel oil, heavy oil, lubricating oil).
- Boiler room
- In the boiler room there is the steam boiler required for ship heating, heavy fuel oil heating and bunker preheating.
Rail vehicles
In contrast to railcars , where most of the technology is located below the floor or on the roof, locomotives and power cars also have an engine room. This is located in the middle of the vehicle between the two driver's cabs (in the case of powered end cars, between the driver's cab and the car junction ). The engine room in diesel or electric locomotives contains various facilities. Common are devices for cooling the drive units, compressed air generation and parts of the brake, the vehicle battery, devices for safety technology (such as the LZB vehicle computer in Germany ) and various devices for vehicle control and monitoring.
The engine room of electric locomotives or power units also includes:
- High voltage framework
- Transformer (possibly also underfloor)
- Switching mechanism and drive switching groups or converters
- Auxiliary starter switch or auxiliary converter
- E-brake equipment if necessary
In addition to the above-mentioned facilities, diesel locomotives also have:
- Diesel engine, possibly auxiliary diesel engine
- hydraulic transmission or drive generator with converters
- Turbocharger and exhaust system
- Generator to generate electricity for the train busbar (possibly with converters) or steam boiler
- Preheating and holding device
Power plant construction
In most types of hydropower plants , the electricity-producing turbines are in their own machine house . Exceptions are the cavern power plants , where the entire machinery is installed underground. The machine room (or the machine hall) is then called machine cavern or cavern power house in technical terms .
The engine room houses the central operating resources of the power plant:
- Turbines - for types see hydroelectric power plant
- hydraulic start-up converter - for commissioning
- Generators , on an axis with the turbines
- Main pumps and motor generators - in pumped storage plants
- Transformers - in cavern power plants in a second cavern for safety reasons, in other hydropower plants mostly outdoors
Lifting technology
The engine room houses the propulsion system - the engine, hence also the engine room - a transport system for goods and people. Machine rooms are found for lifts ( elevator systems ) in buildings, cable cars and chair lifts , inclined lifts and funiculars .
In the elevator technology of mining, the free-standing machine house developed with the transition to civil engineering and the use of the steam engine . Now buildings were necessary that created a weatherproof stand for the steam engine itself and the boiler systems for generating the steam.
Regulations for elevators are recorded in the central European series of standards EN 81 , which also includes construction, operation and emergency measures relating to machine rooms. In Germany, the adoption of the EN and additional regulations that are summarized in the Technical Rules for Elevators (TRA) apply .
