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Risk
Bulletin
Why Diesel Engines on Fire
Number 48
Pumps Fail Prematurely
July
2014 By Gene Allen, Allianz Energy, Houston

Large diesel engines that are used to power fixed fire

protection water pumps appear to have a pattern of
premature failure due to overheating. When diesel
engines are used in over-the-road trucks, they normally
operate over 6,000 hours before major repairs are
needed. However, many of these engines on fixed fire
protection water pumps are failing with less than 500
hours of operation.

In large flammable and combustible liquids handling

complexes, the total area of process units can be as large
as a small town. Because of the facility size and
quantities of flammable liquids, multiple large (2,500 to
5,000 gpm) fire protection water pumps are needed.
These pumps are almost always powered by diesel
engines and not electric motors because if the facility
has a large incident, such as a Vapor Cloud Explosion
(VCE), the electrical supply could be impaired. Thus, the
diesel engine is the driver of choice for these large fire
protection water pumps.

Engine on upper left only had 150 hours of

operation before the top end
overhaul / new head

All Photos and drawings

by author except
as noted

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 Two ways to cool a water jacketed diesel engine

There are two methods of removing/rejecting heat from water jacketed internal combustion diesel engines:

1. The method used in trucks and cars is circulation of the heated water from the engine through a water to air heat
exchanger, called a radiator. Older engine driven firewater pumps, as well as newer, very large diesel firewater
pumps, use radiators for cooling.

In cold weather climates, firewater pumps installed outside would have to be freeze protected.

For current installations, most fire pumps are enclosed in buildings. If equipped with a radiator, the building can be
very expensive because it would require specially designed ventilation systems that allow fresh air into the building
and hot air exiting the radiator out of the building. See figure below.

Fig A.11.3.2(b) from NFPA 20, Installation of Stationary Pumps for Fire Protection, 2013 Edition

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 Two ways to cool a water jacketed diesel engine (continued)

2. When a diesel engine is used to power something in an enclosed area, like a boat or other marine application (e.g.
engine room), a liquid to liquid heat exchanger is used to cool the engine by exchanging the generated internal
heat with the cool sea water or fresh water from outside the boat. For decades, many diesel engine drivers on
fire pumps could be provided with these liquid to liquid heat exchangers instead of radiators. These exchanger
equipped engines get raw cooling water from the discharge side of the fire pump. Traditionally, a shell and tube
type heat exchanger is used. See the yellow exchanger mounted in front of the engine photo below.

All those boats used one or more water to water heat

exchangers, not only to cool the engine, but also to cool
the engine intake combustion air from the supercharger.
Additionally, the engine room was kept cooler by using
the outside water to cool the engine exhaust manifold.
The limited space is more than evident when looking at
the photo below of a PT boat and its three giant 12
cylinder Packard engines.

These water to water heat exchangers typically were a

The idea of using water to water heat exchangers has
been around in very expensive pleasure boats since the
1920s. During World War II, between 1938 and 1945,
they were produced by the thousands to be used in
small to medium sized watercraft, landing craft, service
boats, and even fighting craft like the Patrol Torpedo
(PT) boats.
standard shell and tube exchanger with the hot engine
water on one side and the cool raw water on the other.
For corrosion resistance, the choice of metal depended
on whether the raw water was salty sea water or
fresh lake or river water. Also, the exchangers were
bolted together so they could be disassembled for
cleaning at regular intervals. This was done in order to
remove foreign material and scaling accumulation before
the exchanger plugged and the engine overheated.

PT boat Engine Room with three Packard V 12 engines

Photo with permission of T. Garth Connelly

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 The death of the radiator on engine driven fixed firewater pumps

When the economic pressures to reduce costs and
expenses came to the energy industry in the early
1980s, many energy, petrochemical, and chemical
companies started outsourcing things like maintenance
and engineering. The design of fire protection water
systems slowly became one of the items that was
outsourced. Instead of an in-plant engineer designing
fire pumps and systems, outside vendors took on more
and more of the water system projects including new
firewater pump design.
These vendor contractors turned to public standards like
the National Fire Protection Agencys Code for Stationary
Pumps (NFPA 20) for design information. Because NFPA
20 allowed the water to water exchangers, and fire
pump sets with these exchangers are less expensive to
manufacture and install, the contractors influenced the
firewater pump manufacturers to offer more pumps
with water to water exchangers. Industry quickly moved
in that direction. Without the experienced in-plant
engineer to be the gate keeper on the decision, the
radiator equipped diesel engine began to disappear.

Raw water Normal and Bypass piping NFPA 20, Installation of Stationary Pumps for Fire Protection, 2013 Edition

While NFPA 20 provides good information on the design of the emergency bypass piping, (see above), almost all of the rest
of the raw water cooling loop, including the heat exchanger design, is left to the discretion of the manufacturer or vendor.

Premature overheating engine failure is from insufficient heat exchanger cooling

The non-mechanical related premature diesel engine

failures that have been reviewed had one thing in
common: they all had water to water heat exchanger
cooling systems.

Why are these water to water heat exchanger

equipped engines failing?

1. The raw cooling water flow may be reduced below

the minimum recommended rate before the heat
exchanger:

In some cases, the raw water line is reduced

in size at the supply connection to the source
water piping, as can be seen in the photos to
the right. These small connections may have
produced enough cooling flow when the
pump was installed, but over time, these
smaller orifices can be restricted by rust or
tuberculation.
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 Premature overheating engine failure is from insufficient heat exchanger cooling (continued)
The inlet water strainers and/or regulator may be
too small for the larger diesel engines or may be
clogged with debris. It is recommended by some
engine manufacturers that the inlet strainers be
disassembled and cleaned before each weekly
engine churn test, not just blown down.
During a recent flow test of a new 3,500 gpm
firewater pump, when the pump was at rated
capacity with 150 psi discharge pressure, the raw
cooling water regulated pressure was 35 psi, as
expected. When the discharge was increased to
150% of rated capacity, the discharge pressure was
Raw water Emergency bypass Per NFPA 20
2. Even if the cooling water is flowing at the correct rate,
the diesel engine may still overheat if the heat
exchanger loses its thermal transfer efficiency due to
some plugging and/or internal parts fouling (coated
with silt or sludge) see below. Neither the NFPA nor
the manufacturers suggest a schedule for internal
inspection of the heat exchanger.
The raw water going to the heat exchanger is
expected to be clean, maybe even potable water.
The strainers on the supply line and even the screen in
the regulator (a well-kept secret ) are designed to
remove small particles like sand and gravel. Typically,
the raw water source for fire protection water pumps
5
97 psi, also as expected. However, the raw cooling
water regulated pressure surprisingly dropped to
26 psi! Closing the primary supply side valve and
opening the emergency bypass side also resulted in
26 psi. But with both the primary and bypass valves
open the pressure returned to 35 psi.
The strainers were clean, so the strainers and/or
the regulators on this new installation unit were
simply too small to allow the correct amount of raw
cooling water to flow through the exchanger at the
lower inlet water pressure.
(at most of the large flammable/combustible liquids
processing complexes) is from rivers, ponds, or utility
water. These are certainly not potable water sources.
These water sources have materials, silt, mud flakes,
small shells, biological growth, organics, and slime
which can slide through the strainers, but collect in
the exchanger due to velocity changes or turbulence.
Any time the fire protection water is supplied by these
non-potable sources, the inspection of the internal
parts of any heat exchanger should be conducted on a
regularly scheduled basis.
FM (Factory Mutual) Approval, a third-party certification
organization, has recognized the low flow problem in
the raw water cooling loop by requiring an automatic
low flow alarm if the raw water flow is reduced more
than 75% of the required cooling water requirement.
This is a requirement of the FM approval standard for
diesel engine fire pump drivers, section 3.6.1.A May
2012. This could be a flow sensor, differential pressure
sensor, or other sensor. It should be tested during the
weekly and annual test.
 Why is the engine temperature gauge slow to warn of a pending overheating failure?

The water temperature in the engine is regulated by an internal automatic thermostat. Any diesel or gasoline internal
combustion engine must be warmed before it can perform at peak loading. This thermostat is closed at temperatures
less than 180 Fahrenheit (F) and then slowly opens to maintain the operating temperature as close to 180 F as possible.

The thermostat in the engine slowly continues to open as
additional engine cooling is needed if the workload on the
engine is increased. Typically, a thermostat is about half
open at 190F and fully open at about 200F. Once the
thermostat is wide open and if there is not enough raw
cooling water flow to cool the engine, the temperature of
the engine will quickly rise over the safe operating limit
and result in engine damage, unless manually stopped
within a short period of time.
The engine thermostat will complicate the readings of
an engine temperature gauge, but a well designed raw
water system will provide the necessary cooling capacity
to keep the engine temperature between 180F and
185F, even at full engine load while the pump is flowing
at 150% capacity. The closer the temperature is to the
200F side or hot side of the gauge, the poorer the
exchanger is operating.

Three changes complicating the overheating problem

Diesel powered firewater pumps installed since 2008 could have three other things that will further impede the
efficiency of the raw water cooling system and could very easily contribute to the diesel driver overheating:

1. Most of these new pump sets have heat exchangers

that cannot be opened for an internal inspection;
the heat exchangers, including the end caps, are
welded in construction. Therefore they are simply
replaced when they fail to perform properly . It is
critical to note that a serious obstruction can cause an
engine overheating failure in a matter of minutes.

Today, and for some time prior, almost all fire pumps
packaged with Cummings and John Deere engines,
will have these welded heat exchangers. However,
some engine manufacturers still offer engines that
are supplied with a shell and tube heat exchanger that A small welded engine cooling water exchanger on a large diesel engine.
can be internally inspected.
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 Three changes complicating the overheating problem (continued)
2. The raw water going to the engine heat exchanger
will probably be preheated an additional 20 to 25
Fahrenheit. Today, because the current series of the
diesel engines were originally designed for construction
equipment or transport vehicles, they are being altered
to obtain more power and to meet more rigorous
federal emission standards by having better fuel
injection system control and more combustion air.
The better control of the fuel system is accomplished
with a computer controlled fuel metering system,
called the Electronic Control Module (ECM). The ECM
has been used on diesel engines in trucks for years.
NFPA 20 has adapted to the change to an ECM by
requiring that each engine be supplied with a second
(alternate) ECM in case the primary system fails. NFPA
also correctly states that both ECMs should be tested
during the weekly fire pump churn test. Indications
are that very few are being properly tested.
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The higher flows of combustion air needed is satisfied
by installing a supercharger. To get the maximum
power, the hot compressed combustion air from the
compressor side of the supercharger needs to be as
cool as possible to increase the density. Traditionally,
the older, heavy-duty diesel engines had air inter-
coolersmade inside the air intake manifold of the
engine (inter-cooler or heat exchanger). These
inter-coolers used the low pressure coolant water
from inside the engine block to cool the hot
pressurized air before it entered the combustion
chamber of the engine.
Today, because many of the diesel engines are
derivatives of engines used in everything from pickup
trucks to construction equipment, they all have
radiators for engine cooling. They typically use an
external air to air heat exchanger that works like a
radiator to cool the hot compressed combustion air.
However, if there is no engine radiator on the new
firewater pump, a radiator type air after cooler is not
likely either. The diesel engine manufacturers and/or
vendors added another water cooled heat exchanger
to cool the combustion air. See illustration below with
thermal images of an actual loaded diesel engine.
 Three changes complicating the overheating problem (continued)
Currently, all of these air heat exchangers use the
engine raw cooling water before it goes to the engine
heat exchanger. This will pre-heat the raw cooling
water about 20F to 25F before it enters the engine
heat exchanger. This increase in temperature was
empirically verified twice with pumps at a high flow.
Raw water temperature at Inlet Strainer
3. The air from the combustion air heat exchanger is
discharging directly into the engine combustion
chamber, therefore the exchanger must not leak
water into the air path.
Even in limited quantities, a non-compressible liquid
such as water that enters a combustion chamber of
an engine running at a high speed, could cause a
mechanical failure such that internal parts are ejected
out the sides of the engine. This type of dramatic
mechanical failure has occurred so many times on
reciprocating commercial gas compressors that for
the last three decades every compressor has a special
liquid separator on the inlet that causes an automatic
shutdown of the unit if liquids try to enter the
compressor cylinder.
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The raw water temperature increase can be seen with the
composite thermal imaging camera photos below. In the
left photo the incoming raw cooling water temperature at
the inlet strainer is 84.2F, and on the right, the raw water
inlet exiting the combustion air heat exchanger has been
increased to 109F. The water then makes its way to the
engine heat exchanger to cool the engine.
Water temperature exiting air after cooler
To limit this exposure, the air after cooler exchanger
should be built to contain maximum pump pressure,
plus a safety factor, with no damage. It is unknown
what the current design pressure is, but some of these
exchangers are labelled with 60 psi as the maximum
pressure. Typically, the firewater pump supplying this
cooling water could produce water pressures that
exceed 210 psi.
Anyone who is involved in an annual pump test
should limit the time spent around, and specifically
at the side of, any diesel engine.
 We can prevent premature engine failures due to overheating.
A. Record more information and require a longer run time during the annual flow test.
During the annual flow test, the pump should be
operated at 150% of rated flow point for 45 minutes,
but not less than the time it takes for the engine
temperature to stabilize plus 15 minutes. At the end of
the 150% flow time period, with the engine still
running, the following should be recorded for historical
comparison from year-to-year to determine if there is a
performance deterioration of the cooling system:
1. Record the engine water temperature. The closer
the temperature is to 180 F the better the raw
water system is performing. The closer it is to 200
F is an indication of a failing system.
2. Record the pressure in the raw cooling water loop,
with the primary system open. Record it again with
only the bypass leg open and then again with both
systems legs open. 
B. The following additional preventive actions should be completed:

1. The strainers should be disassembled and
inspected (not just blown down) before each
weekly churn test.

2. During the weekly churn test each engine should be
started several different ways while the ECM switch
is on the backup ECM. Caution: Do not change the
ECM switch while the engine is running.

3. During the weekly churn test and during the annual
pump flow test, visually inspect the raw cooling
water outlet at the floor drain several times to
determine if there is a reduced flow from previous
flow test.

4. Install a means to sound an alarm if the raw water
flow is reduced more than 75% of required cooling
water requirement.
If a raw water flow alarm is not installed:
At least every three years, the engine heat
exchanger should be internally inspected.
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All three pressures should be about the same. If one
side is lower than the other, there may be partial
blockage of the strainer and/or the regulator, or the
regulator could be malfunctioning. If the pressure is
markedly greater with both legs open, both the
strainers and/or regulators may be partially blocked,
or the strainers and regulators are just too small.
3. Record the pressure in the raw cooling water
cooling loop while the pump is at 100% flow point
and compare it with the pressure at the 150% flow
point.
If the pressure is more than 3 psi lower at the 150%
test point, the raw cooling water supply piping and/
or connection to the system is either undersized or
it is being restricted by some type of obstruction.
If the heat exchanger is of the welded design and
cannot be internally inspected, it should be removed
and the raw water side should be vigorously flushed in
the reverse direction to normal flow.
5. At least every three to five years, a raw cooling
water flow test should be performed. This is the
same as required during the acceptance test of the
pump. It is done by disconnecting the discharge
piping going to the floor drain. During the 100%
flow point, a container of a known capacity
(typically a 5 gallon pail) should be used to catch
the discharge water so the actual GPM of raw water
is known. The minimum flow rate vs. water
temperature chart for each engine came with the
new pump installation instructions. The water
temperature, used to set the minimum raw cooling
water flow rate, should be the maximum water
temperature that can be expected in the hottest
months of the year. Caution: If the engine has an
external combustion air heat exchanger that uses
the same raw water system going to the engine
heat exchanger, you may need to add 20F to the
normal maximum high water temperature.
 C. Consider these items when writing the specifications for a new diesel powered unit:


1. Fully investigate the choices and do not casually 3. The supercharger compressed air after cooler should
dismiss a standard radiator type cooling system for be an internal inter-cooler built inside the engine.
any diesel powered pump.
If an external air after cooler heat exchanger is to be

2. If a water to water engine cooling system is used, the raw cooling water source should have a
necessary, the following should be included: separate connection to the fire pump discharge
piping and should be completely independent of the
A raw water low flow alarm that will sound when raw cooling water system for the engine heat
the flow is reduced more than 75% of required exchanger. This is allowed in the FM (Factory Mutual)
cooling water flow. approval standard.

An engine heat exchanger should be designed The maximum design water pressure on any external
to allow for internal inspection and cleaning. air after cooler heat exchanger should be at least the
maximum water pressure that can be produced by
the fire pump plus a safety factor.

RB-ARC-48-en

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Copyright 2014 Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty SE. All rights reserved. The material contained in this publication is designed to provide general information only. Whilst every effort has been made to ensure that the
information provided is accurate, this information is provided without any representation or warranty of any kind about its accuracy and Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty SE cannot be held responsible for any mistakes
or omissions. All descriptions of coverage are subject to the terms, conditions and exclusions of the individual policy. Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty SE, Fritz-Schaeffer-Strasse 9, 81737 Munich, Germany
Commercial Register: Munich, HRB 208312
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