Summary
Warm‐up period is considered as the most critical phase in the operation of any device that converts the energy of a fuel into heat, electricity, and other products, including power generation units since the system efficiency and environmental pollution levels are much worse than the normal operation in that phase. Considering this point, in this study, applying the zero‐flow coolant strategy to reduce the warm‐up period is suggested for power generation units and it is investigated in details. An internal combustion engine is selected as the case‐study and implementation of the method to enhance the performance of that from both energy and environmental aspects are studied comprehensively. As the results show, for the investigated engine, which has a capacity of 1.8 L, implementation of the method leads to 17% decrease in the warm‐up period. It is accompanied by 9.32% and 2.23% improvement in the amount of unburned hydrocarbon emission and fuel consumption. Moreover, based on the conducted discussion, despite other available methods to enhance systems that consume fuel, the method is so practical that it could be employed simply in an energy system without imposing a huge cost, which is taken into account as a significant advantage.
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