Published in March 2006 Australian Longwall Magazine

SkillPro has received some funding from the Australian Coal Association’s research program, highlighting the importance of this work in improving worker health and allowing compliance with the latest international best practices.

Currently there are around 1000 diesel engines in use in New South Wales and Queensland underground coal mines, with some more than 20 years old. Whilst this may seem a lot, it is only a drop in the bucket for major engine manufacturers who prefer to devote their research and development to meeting new emission regulations for the huge surface engine market.

“Current emission compliant electronically controlled engines are very new to the underground sector worldwide. They have ‘locked’ electronic controls to avoid tampering. Local users have to use ‘add-ons’ to modify signals and impose unusual constraints like surface temperature limits, methane detection and more,” SkillPro’s Terry O’Beirne said.

He said typically, management systems had been built especially for certain engines and had negligible or zero post-manufacture adjustment. To overcome this, SkillPro has a locally built system that can be applied to various engine makes, and then tuned to suit Australia’s unique emission requirements.

The company’s concept has been based on a proven user-programmable management system designed originally for race petrol engines. This has been adapted with new injector drivers and extensive re-programming to suit a Tier 2 compliant, diesel rather than petrol engine.

“Each load point in the engine operation is mapped with multiple variables to maximise power and minimise emissions,” O’Beirne said, adding that the infinite variability at all load points maximised the chance of meeting imposed emission standards without sacrificing power.

In fact, some engines have been shown to be capable of producing considerably more power at certain load points, he said.

SkillPro’s system benefits include power enhancing devices like turbo or superchargers which can be fully integrated; emission reduction techniques like exhaust gas reticulation and multi-shot injection can be optimised and the ability of the engine to be easily tuned for specific fuels.

At the manufacturing stage, each cylinder can be individually trimmed to account for engine design nuances, and whilst in operation the system can continually retune to compensate for changing fuel or air temperature and even atmospheric pressure.

On top, specialised external devices such as fire suppression and methane detection can be integrated, whilst compensation for mechanical defects is possible to a limited extent.

SkillPro’s next step is further dynamometer testing on various engines.