Summarize, in one paragraph, the gist of the talk given by Mr.

Ramesh Singaram at the GE

Sharing Session at INTI Subang Jaya Campus on 3 February 2016.

Grab opportunities and never stop learning is a quote I would say make similar resemblance to
the speech given by Mr. Ramesh Singaram during the GE Sharing Session at INTI Subang Jaya
campus. I was amongst the lucky few who got the opportunity to attend the talk and was
instantly blown away by the charismatic speech of one Mr. Ramesh himself. A simple down to
earth character merely distinguishes the immense success he has achieved in his occupation. One
value I captured is his enthusiastic energy and eagerness in gaining new knowledge. In his
speech he mentioned the three main points in order to approach a concept which are could it
bring profit, is it helpful for others and will it make a difference, I find these points as a game
changer in the business world as these traits either make or break a concept. I was very
impressed with Mr. Ramesh as he was so willing to share with us some of his business tricks and
trades which many would hesitate to. Furthermore, it was interesting to have an inside view of
the working field that he describe from his early years to his recent works. I was also thrilled to
know that Mr. Ramesh worked his way up through the corporate leader by shear means of hard
work and passion that he had towards his job. He never feared away from challenges and
competition but instead invited more for his eagerness to succeed. I believe that he cultivated the
personality as a peoples person in order to be able to work with different kinds of people from
different working backgrounds. He found every failure as a learning experience and every
hardship as a teacher. Nevertheless, Mr. Ramesh was kind enough give tips to upcoming
graduates on what do companies expect from fresh graduates. Some might think that a
certification with flying colors would be sufficient but he also insisted that a group of skillset
plays as much emphasis as the results. Moreover, on the companys perspective, it has ventured
into multiple industries such as medicine, power supply and many more, proving that diversity is
well embraced by GE. I would say that Mr. Ramesh, even though he mentioned that he has never
given a speech for students before, made a brilliant presentation and gave excellent answers for
the questions directed at him. It was a great learning experience and I would cherish these
moments for the betterment of my future.

You have applied for a job as a mechanical engineer in the power engineering sector at General
Electric (GE). The prospective employer asked you to write an essay to demonstrate your
knowledge about the power engineering products they manufacture. Write this essay based on
what you have learned during the talk/sharing session at the above event, as well as on your online/off-line research about the topic. Include some sample calculations, for example, for a
design of a power plant of a given capacity, to highlight your understanding of the
thermodynamics principles upon which the prospective employers products are based on.

GE is one of the main producers that contributes to the power engineering sector of the world.
They have been recognized as a manufacturer in the development and production of gas engines
for the efficient generation of power and heat for more than 80 years now. Jenbacher and
Waukesha engines are recognized the world over for their performance and reliability with an
astounding range of power from 0.12 to 9.5 MWe.
A heat engine is a machine that produces work from heat, like the steam engine, the work-horse
of the Industrial Revolution. Not all engines are heat engines (e.g. hydraulic wheels and
windmills), but heat engines provide near 90% of the motive power generated in the world (an
average of 21012 W in the year 2000, nearly half-and-half for electricity and transportation), the
other 10% provided by hydroelectric power stations. Nearly 60% of all the world energy
consumption is devoted to run heat engines, the rest being devoted to industrial and domestic
heating. Gas turbines may also reach some 300 MW per unit, and the largest reciprocating
engines are marine diesel engines up to 100 MW (the largest petrol engine is just 0.3 MW).
Inside a heat engine, a working fluid cyclically evolves taking heat from a hot source and
rejecting heat to the environment, producing some mechanical work in the way (usually shaft
work). Gases are the best working substances because of their ease to exchange thermal to
mechanical energy by compression or expansion, whereas liquids have little compressibility. We
call gas cycles those where the working substance stays all the time in the gas phase.
Many gas cycles have been proposed, and several are currently used, to model real heat engines:
the Otto cycle (approximates the actual petrol engine), the Diesel cycle (approximates the actual
diesel engine), the mixed cycle (an hybrid of the last two that is better than both), the Brayton
cycle (approximates very well the actual gas turbine engine), and the Stirling cycle (used in some
exotic applications).
For GEs gas engines we study the gas cycle of Otto cycle. The Otto cycle is a first
approximation to model the operation of a spark-ignition engine and used in many cars, small
planes and small power systems (below say 200 kW) down to miniature engines. This is a
reciprocating internal combustion gas engine, in contrast to the, at that time master, external
combustion steam engine.
The schematic diagram of a reciprocating expansion engine with suction and discharge ports is
shown in figure below. The rotary motion of crankshaft is converted to the reciprocating motion
of piston by connecting rod. It is assumed that no leakage take place in the engine. Considering

inside gas an open thermodynamic system, the governing equation for simulating the engine is
presented in this section.

Figure 1: Schematic Diagram of a Reciprocating Engine

First law Thermodynamics equation is used to develop a numerical method, the continuity and
first law of thermodynamics has been applied to the cylinder to find two thermodynamics
properties. The cylinder wall, cylinder head and piston end face are considered as boundaries for
control volume. The first law of thermodynamic is written as follow:

If variation of kinetic and potential energy is neglected the equation could be written as

The work variation can be calculated as follows

Differentiating respect to time could be converted to crank angle by considering the equation

In which, w is the rotational speed of the crank shaft. Finally the first law of thermodynamic
equation driven as below:

The work done by pressure forces acting on a piston can also be evaluated as the integral of pdV.
It is evident therefore that the work done during a single engine cycle is the area enclosed by the
cycle process curves on the pressure-volume diagram. Thus, instead of using the cyclic integral
or evaluating pdV for each process of the cycle, the work of a reciprocating engine can be found
by drawing the theoretical process curves on the p-V diagram and graphically integrating them.
The work done per cycle (from an indicator card, for instance) can be represented as an average
pressure times a volume. Because the displacement volumes of engines are usually known, an
engine performance parameter known as the mean effective pressure, MEP, is defined in terms of
the piston displacement. The mean effective pressure is defined as the value of the pressure
obtained by dividing the nett work per cylinder per cycle at a given operating condition by the
piston displacement volume:
MEP = W/disp [lbf /ft2 | kPa]
Thus the MEP is a measure of the effectiveness of a given displacement volume in producing
nett work. The power output of an engine with identical cylinders may be represented as the
product of the work per cycle and the number of cycles executed per unit time by the engine.
Thus if the engine has n cylinders, each executing N identical thermodynamic cycles per unit
time, and delivering W work units per cylinder, with a piston displacement, disp, the power
output is given by
P = n*N*W = n*N*MEP*disp [ft-lbf /min | kW]
Expressed for the entire engine, the engine displacement is DISP = n*disp and the engine work is
MEP*DISP. Hence the engine power is:
P = N*MEP*DISP [ft-lbf /min | kW]
where N, the number of thermodynamic cycles of a cylinder per unit time, is the number of
crank-shaft revolutions per unit time for a two-stroke-cycle engine and one-half of the
revolutions per unit time for a four-stroke-cycle engine. The factor of for the four-stroke-cycle
engine arises because one thermodynamic cycle is executed each time the crank rotates through
two revolutions.
Reciprocating engines that are powered by compressed air, steam or other hot gases are still used
in some applications such as to drive many modern torpedoes or as pollution-free motive power.
Most steam-driven applications use steam turbines, which are more efficient than piston engines.