How powerful is the world's largest engine? Consuming 13000 liters of fuel per hour and providing nearly 110000 horsepower

The engine is often described as the heart of modern transportation, used to drive cars, trains, ships, and other vehicles to transport people and goods to their destinations at a faster speed.

For fuel engines, one of the decisive factors limiting their power is their size, as larger engines are typically able to burn more fuel and generate more power than smaller engines.

In order to meet different needs, engineers often make engines bigger and bigger, to the point where the largest piston engine currently available - the Wartsila 14 cylinder RT-flex 96C - has reached a colossal height of 13.5 meters, 26.59 meters long, and weighs 2300 tons.

W ä rtsil ä RT-flex96C, Image source: Popular Mechanics

How powerful is the Wartsila 14 cylinder RT-flex96C?

The Wartsila RT-flex96C is a series of engines developed by the Finnish company Wartsila, among which the 14 cylinder version (referred to as 14RT-flex96C in the following text) is currently the largest reciprocating engine (i.e. piston engine) put into use by humans.

If we put the 14RT-flex96C in front of us, it is difficult to associate it with the engine, it is more like an industrial building made of metal.

The highest point is about 5 floors high, and when engineers maintain the engine, it is like maintaining a building, requiring the use of various elevators.

The picture shows the 8-cylinder version of the crankshaft, similar to the 14 cylinder version, with a weight of 300 tons

The cylinder bore diameter of the 14RT-flex96C is nearly 1 meter, with a stroke of over 2.5 meters. Each of the 14 cylinders has a displacement of 1820 liters and can produce 7780 horsepower. When operating at full load, it can reach 107390 horsepower.

Many people may not have a concept of 107390 horsepower, but we can compare it to a regular family car - a typical family car has an output power between 100-150 horsepower and a displacement of around 1.5 liters.

When the 14RT-flex96C is operating at full capacity, it can generate 80080 kilowatts of energy. If a regular household light bulb is 60 watts, then the energy produced by the 14RT-flex96C is enough for 1.3 million light bulbs to be used simultaneously.

Image: Two workers inspecting the crankshaft

Based on a household owning 6 such light bulbs, the 14RT-flex96C engine can meet the electricity needs of 220000 households, which is equivalent to the number of residents in a small county town. In other words, one 14RT-flex96C engine can illuminate a small county town.

The W ä rtsil ä RT-flex 96C series engines all burn heavy oil, and the 14RT-flex 96C is no exception. Heavy oil refers to the remaining heavy oil after extracting gasoline and diesel, which is characterized by its low price - perhaps only 1/4 of regular gasoline.

Image: Specialized piston

However, even so, the operating cost of 14RT-flex96C is not low at all. It is not difficult to see from its parameters that this is an "oil swallowing behemoth".

The 14RT-flex96C consumes 13000 liters of heavy oil per hour, which is equivalent to approximately $6800, and costs around $160000 per day.

You may also be curious, what is the purpose of creating such a massive and fuel consuming machine?

A super large cargo ship using 14RT-flex96C

To match this super large engine, naturally a super large transportation vehicle is needed. Currently, the container ship using the 14RT-flex96C engine is the Emma Maersk.

The Emma Maersk was a cargo ship built by Danish shipping company Maersk Line at a cost of 170 million US dollars. Its length reached 397 meters and the width of its crossbeam reached 56 meters. As a comparison, the famous Titanic was only 269 meters long;

Its weight exceeds 170000 tons, and the weight of the 14RT-flex96C engine is equivalent to about 1.35% of this cargo ship. After putting the "heart" into the body, it doesn't actually look very big at all.