English - MTU Onsite Energy

Talking of...
What impressed our editors
1
2
1 Lucie Maluck visited the Gulf Craft shipyard to see how yachts are built in the United
Arab Emirates. 2 On her visit to a commercial deep-freeze facility, Katrin Hanger
discovered how to turn heat into cold. 3 Bernd Scherer explains NC programming for
cylinder heads to Katrin Beck.
3
Afterthoughts
Fabulous yacht-building
This is where luxury yachts are made? I found that hard to imagine as I
wandered through the production halls at the Gulf Craft shipyard in the
United Arab Emirates. The place was packed with people sawing, drilling,
hammering and spackling. I had imagined luxury a little differently – ultramodern
with state-of-the-art machines glittering and sparkling. But, at Gulf
Craft, yacht-building really does mean hand-built. Labor costs are low,
so the shipyard can afford to pay people to do work that is carried out
by machines in other companies. However, I do not intend to ponder too
long on the issue – especially as the Belgian managing director explained
that his workers liked to work long hours and thought that leisure time
was unimportant. Nevertheless, the United Arab Emirates are simply
fascinating and my stay there was like a visit to a land from the fables.
And, of course, the story of Gulf Craft´s development is a fabulous tale.
Find out more in our feature `The wedding planner´ (Page 36).
Artificial land
“Please turn now”, “Please turn now”, “Please turn now” our satnav was
obviously under the impression that we had already been driving around in
the North Sea for quite a while. In reality, of course, we still had dry land
under our wheels, albeit artificial land. The scene of our visit, the Jade-
Weser-Port in Wilhelmshaven, was reclaimed by dumping sand and our
satnav was obviously not yet completely familiar with this particular area.
The Jade-Weser-Port is also the site of the latest facility to be built by
Nordfrost, the food logistics company, and it was here that our
photographer and I wanted to visit the two combined CHCP modules set
up by MTU Onsite Energy to provide heat, power and, most important of
all, cooling. The process relies on absorption chillers, chemical reactions
and the affinity of ammonia for water. And it is fascinating. Read about it
for yourself on Page 44.
Production from a different angle
In this issue of MTU Report, I explain how an MTU cylinder head is
manufactured. Before beginning the article, I had imagined myself in the
production halls, standing at the conveyor belt next to a colleague from
the assembly section. Accompanied by the typical sounds and smells of
the assembly halls, my guide would take me through every single step in
the process – or so I thought. I was therefore quite taken aback when I
met Bernd Scherer sitting in front of a regular computer with no signs of
production or assembly anywhere in sight! What I then found out was very
impressive. Initially, a cylinder head is created on the computer – virtual
production. The NC programming stage is the first and most important
step and without it, the production machines could not even start up.
Using multicolored but easy-to-grasp graphics, Scherer explained how the
programming worked, what the vital factors were for production and why a
cylinder head is created on the computer. You can read more on Page 26.
64 I MTU Report 03/12