Hitachi is the eleventh engine builder in the Wärtsilä family of engine licensees to manufacture Wärtsilä RT-flex electronically-controlled common-rail marine engines. The other engine builders are in South Korea, Japan, China, Italy, Croatia and Poland.
This additional manufacturing capacity from Hitachi enables Wärtsilä to serve the steadily and strongly growing world-wide demand for the popular RT-flex engine type.
The six-cylinder Wärtsilä RT-flex50-B engine built by Hitachi will be delivered to Nanjing Wujiazui Shipbuilding Co Ltd in China. There it will be installed in a 1085 TEU container ship being built for a German owner. The engine has a maximum continuous power of 9,960 kW (13,560 bhp) at 124 rpm.
Hitachi has orders for a total of 26 RT-flex50 engines from shipyards in China and Brazil, including the engine demonstrated today.
Wärtsilä RT-flex marine low-speed engines incorporate the latest electronically-controlled common-rail technology for fuel injection and valve actuation. The new technology provides great flexibility in engine setting, bringing benefits in lower fuel consumption, lower minimum running speeds, smokeless operation at all running speeds, and better control of other exhaust emissions.
Wärtsilä RT-flex engines are available in eight cylinder sizes covering a power range from 5650 to 84,420 kW. The Wärtsilä RT-flex50-B is the smallest of these, providing prime movers of up to 13,280 kW which are ideally suited to the propulsion of 900-1500 TEU container ships, bulk carriers in the Handymax to Panamax size range, and product tankers. It is designed to meet the market needs for outstanding reliability, high efficiency, compactness, optimised manufacturing, and environmental requirements.