Test Engines to Accelerate Net Zero Shipping and Power Generation (TITANZ)

TITANZ (Test Engines to Accelerate Net Zero Shipping and Power Generation) is a £3.5million project funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) to establish a megawatt scale decarbonised engine experimental facility, with two unique research engines strategically co-located as a new collaborative centre of excellence and nationally accessible asset at Nottingham and Brighton.

It is recognised that the internal combustion engine will remain dominant across high power marine, distributed power generation and off-road vehicles for several decades to come, requiring intensified fundamental research around greener fuels and clean, high efficiency operating modes. With the UK's internationally leading reputation for excellence in fundamental engine research for lighter duty cars, vans and trucks, there are clear opportunities to transfer fundamental knowledge and skills to large engines.

Prior to this project, the UK academic community was lacking large single cylinder engine facilities, with researchers restricted to automotive scale experiments and simulations extrapolated up to larger scale (with significant errors in fundamental predictions). This had proved a major omission in accelerating Net Zero fuels, disruptive large engine technologies and policies from within the UK.

The vision for TITANZ is therefore to establish a world-leading, megawatt scale decarbonised engine experimental facility, with two unique research engines strategically co-located across two UK leading heavy duty engine academic centres to underpin research on disruptive Net Zero fuels, combustion and after-treatment systems for marine, power generation and off-road applications.

The project is led by Professor Al Cairns at the University of Nottingham, and the new collaborative centre of excellence and nationally accessible asset, based at the two partnering universities, will leverage existing infrastructure and expertise and allow greater productive cooperation.

For example, the team have recognised that research is needed around the acceptance of fuels such as ammonia and hydrogen. This is size dependent, with general agreement that ammonia will form part of the mix for larger ships, while methanol is favoured for intermediate vessels and hydrogen is used for some shorter-range applications. The TITANZ facility will help tackle the complex problem of what the best mix of maritime and power generation fuels will be, delivering appropriately scaled end-use data on performance and emissions to enable research around full life cycle impacts, economic analysis and future legislation assessments.

One of the immediate benefits will be to the MariNH3 research programme, which is developing clean, green ammonia engines for maritime. The new test engines will enable the transfer of fundamental knowledge into full-scale application.