Air Intake Testing

[Brent Howard]

Hey Everyone

I was just wondering how everyone else is testing their Air Intake. We have to design the Sir Intake for the 2004 car as a design project and they want data. Problem is that we have no access to a dyno that we can test on and try out different concepts. Basically I am looking for other ideas on how to test the intake to decide upon runner lengths (we are simply using the stock diameter and confining ourselves to a single plenum volume). Or, if anyone from the U of Alberta reads this and has a 600 CC engine all set up on a dyno that we could come up and test on (well bring the beer). I am really confused as to how we can test this thing without spending alot of time and money. Also, computer simulations are a good idea, but any one that will be able to give us a very accurate model will be quite hard to learn by the end of the semester.

Brent

www.ucalgary.ca/fsae (http://www.ucalgary.ca/fsae)

[Brent Howard]

Hey Everyone

I was just wondering how everyone else is testing their Air Intake. We have to design the Sir Intake for the 2004 car as a design project and they want data. Problem is that we have no access to a dyno that we can test on and try out different concepts. Basically I am looking for other ideas on how to test the intake to decide upon runner lengths (we are simply using the stock diameter and confining ourselves to a single plenum volume). Or, if anyone from the U of Alberta reads this and has a 600 CC engine all set up on a dyno that we could come up and test on (well bring the beer). I am really confused as to how we can test this thing without spending alot of time and money. Also, computer simulations are a good idea, but any one that will be able to give us a very accurate model will be quite hard to learn by the end of the semester.

Brent

www.ucalgary.ca/fsae (http://www.ucalgary.ca/fsae)

[David Money]

We did ours by simply measuring the pressure difference accross the inlet and exit of the restrictor since we didn't have access to a dyno at that time. We used a wind tunnel that pulled through, and figured out the correct speed that the air needed to be moving at. From there we just put pressure sensors at different locations along the path and looked at the drop.

What's interesting is that it was really inconclusive and didn't really matter a whole lot in the end as our peak was just short of where it was in a non-restricted state (12,500 rpm). This was in stark contradiction to what some senior design guys calculated out that it would happen at 8000 rpm. Think it might have had something to do with their 1st assumption of the fluid body being non-compressible.....uuummm...right... http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif

[SKYLO]

Sorry Brent we blew our engine after last years competition and are not using another 600cc four cylinder again this year. We have been designing our intakes using a engine simulation program that we recieved from a company called Gamma Technologies.

Sky

[Brent Howard]

Ok, Sounds good. What are you planning to use this year skylo? I have heard alot of talk about switching to a 400 cc engine that you can get the full preformance out of rather than running a restricted 600 CC engine. Not that I have heard that the U of A is using that, just there is a section of our team that advocates this path. also, our calculation for max rpm based on the restrictor size is 12300.....so fairly close to what you got. I'm pretty sure the real value will end up around 11500 because of extra preesure losses ove the system.

Brent

www.ucalgary.ca/fsae (http://www.ucalgary.ca/fsae)