Most large commercial vessels are propelled by low-speed two-stroke diesel engines due to their fuel economy and reliability. With increasing international concern about emissions and the rise in oil prices, improvements in engine efficiency are urgently needed. In the present work, a zero-dimensional model for a low-speed two-stroke diesel engine is developed that considers the exhaust gas bypass and geometry structures for the gas exchange model. The model was applied to a low-speed two-stroke 7G80 ME-C9 marine diesel engine and validated with engine shop test data, which consisted of the main engine performance parameters and cylinder pressure diagrams at different loads. The simulation results were in good agreement with the experimental data. Thus, the model has the ability to predict engine performance with good accuracy. After model validation, the variations in compression ratio, fuel injection timing, exhaust gas bypass valve opening portion, exhaust valve opening timing, and exhaust valve closing timing effects on engine performance were tested. Finally, the influence level of different parameters on engine performance was summarized, which can be used as a reference to determine the reasons for high fuel consumption in some cases. The developed engine performance model is considerable in digital twins for performance simulation, health management, and optimization.

Thermoeconomic diagnosis methods are designed to identify faulty components and evaluate the economic implications of these faults. However, these diagnostic techniques often struggle to filter out interference from induced factors during the diagnosis process. When multiple components malfunction simultaneously, these methods may fail to effectively identify all the faulty components. To address these challenges, this article introduces an improved thermoeconomic diagnosis method that integrates the traditional diagnosis method with the operational characteristic curves of the components. This improved method facilitates a more precise differentiation between the impacts of faults on each component, categorizing them into intrinsic and induced parts. The intrinsic part arises from the component’s inherent failure, while the induced part results from interactions among different components or adjustments made by the control system. The improved method generates fault diagnosis indicators and economic assessment indicators based on this classification, allowing for the identification of faulty components and the evaluation of the economic consequences of these faults. The proposed method was tested on a MAN 6S50 MC-C8 diesel engine and validated under two real operating conditions, where multiple faults were intentionally introduced in various components. The results demonstrated that the new method accurately identified all faulty components within the marine diesel engine and assessed the economic impacts of these faults.