The Engines and Combustion Lab (ECL) is a premier facility in the South Engineering Research Center. The ECL consists of 11,000 square feet of high-bay space partitioned into six test cells, four instrument rooms between the test cells, two large work rooms, a central hallway, and substantial storage space. One large test cell houses a two-roller chassis dynamometer capable of measuring power output of front, rear, or four-wheel-drive vehicles up to 14,000 pounds gross vehicle weight and up to 350 hp per axle.
The other large test cell houses an AC engine dynamometer rated at 650 hp and up to 1360 ft-lbf torque. Emissions equipment includes a dilution tunnel and five-gas emissions analyzers for raw and diluted samples, plus particulates, capable of handling the exhaust of a 650 hp diesel engine at full load. Other available ECL instrumentation includes a fast-response Cambustion CLD500 NOx analyzer, fast-response TSI EEPS Particulate Spectrum and Number (PSN) analyzer, Thermo-Scientific REGA Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectrometer with heated sample line, fast-response (1 ms/amu) V&F AIRSENSE mass spectrometer, Cambustion HFR400 Fast-FID hydrocarbon analyzer, Koehler Instruments K45000 distillation analyzer, and a gas chromatograph system for product-gas analysis. Laser-based diagnostic instruments available are several Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) systems, including a time-resolved stereoscopic PIV system, a standard, low-speed PIV system, and a TSI Volumetric 3-component Velocimetry (V3V) system for 3D velocity-field measurements.
Also available is a high-speed TSI Planar Laser-Induced Fluorescence (PLIF) system for time-resolved combustion species measurements. Other optical diagnostic systems include a quantitative rainbow Schlieren apparatus for whole-field scalar measurements, Schlieren, shadowgraph, and holographic interferometry systems for spray and flame imaging, a Laser-Doppler Velocimetry (LDV) system for velocity and turbulence measurements, and a Phase-Doppler Particle Analyzer (PDPA) system for point measurements of drop size/velocity.