If a British RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat Institution) ‘Severn-class’ lifeboat bent on a lifesaving mission in foul weather were to capsize, it is designed to upright within seconds (the righting lever must be a long one) but how can the engine keep running after the boat has ‘looped the loop’? Inverting a running diesel engine would likely cause engine oil to enter the cylinders through the crankcase ventilation system, causing uncontrolled combustion as surely as pressing the self-destruct button. A few years ago, the RNLI was looking to re-engine its ‘all weather’ boats and asked MTU if they could tackle the problem.The Revolving Cradle Test-bedMTU design engineers took their Series 2000 M94 engine and fitted it to a special-purpose cradle that would rotate it through 360 degrees about its own longitudinal axis in order to study closely and practically the effectiveness of modifications they made to the design of the crankcase ventilation and oil... [More]