You often hear the phrase, “Gentlemen, start your engines!!!”  But what do you do if the engine was not designed to handle your local site conditions or what if there is just a glitch in somewhere?  Wouldn’t you want to find that out before putting your product on the market or on the track?  In the automotive market, this can damage your name or cause unexpected spending on recalls, which were not calculated into the original budget.  In the racing industry, it can cost your team the “big race”.  With this in mind, you may ask where you can find quality engine test equipment. 
                                                                       
Environmental Tectonics Corporation (ETC) can provide solutions to help you with these types of problems.  ETC provides testing and simulation equipment for the Automotive and HVAC industries.  The Testing & Simulation division has been designing, manufacturing, installing and maintaining engine test equipment for over three decades.  ETC’s Testing & Simulation Division’s slogan, is “Driving Optimal Performance” and that is just what we intend to help you do! 

In this paper, I am not going to burden you with too many technical details, because that is what our data sheets are for.  What I am going to do is tell you how ETC can help you.  ETC will design and manufacture testing equipment to fit your needs.  I will also discuss emissions changes implemented by the EPA. 

ETC’s CAS provides combustion air to engines for performance and development testing as well as and dilution air for exhaust measurements. These systems deliver air at precisely controlled temperature, humidity, pressure and flow conditions and are also free from pollutants, which makes us green.  Our systems are mostly used for R&D, component and design verification.  Conversely, our units can be used on the exhaust side of the engine in lieu of the inlet for dilution or emissions measurements. 

Our products include Combustion Air Units (CAS), Dilution CAS units, and low temperature (cold unit) CAS units. The applications include: brake test systems; emissions certifications testing; fuels and lubrication development; dilution tunnel air supply systems; and combustion research and development testing.  The features are: barometric capability, altitude compensation, as well as the ability to create various engine intake manifold pressure profiles (ex: pressure changes due to drafting or position on the track).  All of this is in a relatively small footprint.  The EPC (Engine Pressure control) valve controls the pressure of the air provided at the inlet of the engine.  Our unit can provide over 3” Hg boost above site pressure (ex: 14.7” Hg for sea level) or 17.7” Hg.  This boost is required to simulate sea level conditions for areas above sea level.  At various altitudes, the air density decreases, effecting engine performance.  Engine manufacturers test at extreme conditions to improve engine performance and can make changes to their engines accordingly. 

With the growing concerns regarding energy consumption and many companies going green, we now have a “green option”. This CAS re-circulates the excess process air created when the engine intake air requirement is less that the CAS unit’s specified airflow rate.  This allows for a clean, compact unit, which uses less energy and it lightens the load on the facility’s HVAC system.  Also, the facility exhaust ducting will be eliminated with this recirculation capability. 

While the CAS is our standard design, we have some options that can be tailored to your needs. They are:

• Altitude Simulation/Pressure Control System for Engine Testing is used for engine tests, including power and emissions, both steady state and dynamic tests. ETC's background in Hypo and Hyper-baric chambers for submarine rescue systems and pilot training has allowed us to develop an inexpensive altitude simulation system for engine testing and drive in chambers that do not require a full altitude chamber. It can provide simulation at the engine intake and exhaust up to 4,000m and down to 200m below sea level while maintaining stable conditions to within 50m as well as controlling temperature and humidity. It can be easily retroactively integrated into any engine test cell or facility.

During the last ten years, the design of simulation systems has undergone considerable changes due to the availability of improved measurement devices, PC-based computer data acquisition systems and real-time data evaluation. The impact of these changes allows more accurate testing and fuller automation of the test facilities.   

The equipment we manufacture can help you by giving you accurate results when testing.  This, in turn will let you know if there are any changes that need to be made to make you car more reliable for the road or the track.  You can go onto our website if you would like to view our customer list.  That list should demonstrate ETC’s strong foothold in this industry.   Whether you are in the racing industry or the automotive industry we can design equipment to your specifications.  Let us help you meet industry standards!