DEVELOPMENT Turbocharging

Turbocharger Test Stand

with a Hot Gas Generator for High-
Performance Supercharging Systems
Exhaust gas turbochargers have great importance for environmentally friendly internal combustion
engines with a high power density. The development of increasingly powerful supercharging systems
requires highly flexible test stands. Kratzer Automation develops such turbocharger test rigs based on
a natural gas burner.

22 MTZ 10I2008 Volume 69

1 Introduction
Developing and optimising exhaust gas
turbochargers requires test stands that
generate hot exhaust gas under reprodu-
cible conditions. A reliable and accurate
determination of the thermodynamic be-
haviour of turbocharger prototypes is a
basic precondition for achieving addition-
al increases in power in an internal com-
bustion engine and extending the service
life of the turbocharger. The turbocharger
test stand generates characteristic maps
for turbines and compressors and makes
it possible to test individual components
for durability, for example bearings, tur-
bine wheels and turbine housings.
Supercharging technology is under-
going very rapid development today, and
has led to two-stage supercharging and
turbochargers for petrol engines that
can handle increasingly higher exhaust
gas entry temperatures. This rapid
progress also brings with it challenges
for the turbocharger test stand. Extended
adjustment ranges are now the rule for
mass flow, temperature and pressure, as
are rapid and precise acquisition of data,
the option of automatic operation and
low maintenance and operating costs.
to make changes to the test set-up. Natural The Authors
gas offers some additional advantages com-
pared to liquid fuels. Because natural gas is
provided by a supply line, there is no need Dipl.-Ing.
for a fuel tank, which would have to be re- Detlef Naundorf
filled periodically. is Director of Test
The test stand is designed as a com- Systems at Kratzer
pact unit. While conventional diesel Automation in Unter-
burner systems often fill several rooms schleissheim near
with all the required pipe connections, Munich (Germany).
test stands that run on natural gas are
compact units with built-in lubricating
oil and cooling water conditioning. The Dipl.-Ing. Holger Bolz
dimensions of the entire unit are 2800 is Unit Manager of
mm x 1300 mm x 2300 mm (L x W x H). Test Systems at Kratzer
Since natural gas burns with almost no Automation in Unter-
pollutants typical values are less than schleissheim near
100 ppm NOx and CO there is no need to Munich (Germany).
install an exhaust gas cleaning system. The
system is also largely maintenance-free.

2 Hot Gas Technology

While earlier generations of turbocharger

test stands worked with liquid fuels such
as diesel or kerosene, the test stand de-
scribed here is based on environmentally
friendly natural gas burner technology,
Figure 1. The hot exhaust gas used to exam- Figure 1: Turbocharger test stand with a hot gas generator: example of a measurement
ine the prototype is generated in a stain- set-up for determining a compressor and turbine engine map
less steel combustion chamber and pre-
pared at a temperature of between 150
and 1200 C and a pressure of 0 to 8 bar. Table: Typical characteristic data from an exhaust gas turbocharger test stand
The adjustable mass flow, for example for
typical passenger car applications, ex- Min 0.013
Hot Gas Mass Flow kg/s
tends from 0.013 to 0.320 kg/s, Table. Max 0.320
Natural gas burner technology, and es- Min 8
pecially the integrated combustion proce- Burner Power Range kW
Max 330
dure, exhibits a very even temperature dis-
tribution on the turbine input and a wide Min 150
Hot Gas Temperature C
adjustment range. The use of this burner Max 1,200
makes it possible to set exactly reproduci- Min bar 0
ble conditions of mass flow, temperature Hot Gas Pressure
Max (abs) 8
and pressure on the turbocharger and
Temperature Distribution over
simulate each required operating point. As C +8
Cross Section1
a result, entire series of turbochargers can
be tested on the test stand without having 1
without consideration of boundary layer

MTZ 10I2008 Volume 69 23

DEVELOPMENT
Figure 2: Software programme for configuring
and parameterising tests: the screenshot shows
the user interface of the Kratzer Automation
PAtools automation systems for configuration
and parameterisation of an automatic engine
map
The only recommendation is for one serv-
ice per year. The low price of natural gas
compared to diesel also contributes to the
overall low operating costs.
2.1 Control and Automation
Ideally, the test stand is controlled by a
flexible automation programme that
makes it possible to run the test stand
manually, semi-automatically or fully
automatically. A manual mode is avail-
able for theoretical tests. In this mode,
the test stand operator enters the out-
put of the combustion chamber and ad-
justs the setting valves of the test stand.
In semi-automatic mode, the controllers
are active and set points such as the ex-
haust gas temperature, turbocharger
speed and compressor mass flow can be
freely assigned. In fully automatic mode,
predefined test sequences are run, for
example to measure engine maps. In
the PAtools automation system de-
veloped by Kratzer Automation, all test
data is saved in a central database. A
project planning programme allows the
user to choose parameters for test pro-
cedures and also to use a script language
with graphical sequence programming
to make adjustments to changing re-
quirements, Figure 2.
A measurement process that is precisely
adapted to the test stand determines the
engine map of the turbine and compressor
fully automatically. Control algorithms
24 MTZ 10I2008 Volume 69
Turbocharging
Figure 3: Test stand running in thermal shock mode after the heating up phase, the combustion
chamber is turned off and cold air is directed at the turbocharger
based on fuzzy logic ensure the dynamic
setting of exhaust gas temperatures with-
out exceeding the limit temperatures of
the test object. As soon as the determined
operating points have been set and are sta-
ble, their thermodynamic stability is ex-
amined. If individual components fail or
critical limits are exceeded, the test stand
is automatically turned off to protect both
the test object and the test stand. This en-
sures that strict safety standards are ob-
served even in fully automatic mode.
2.2 Additional Equipment
The basic configuration of a turbochar-
ger test stand generally includes the
combustion chamber and four addition-
al pieces of equipment with the follow-
ing functions:
adjustment of the compressor boost
pressure
conditioning of the lubrication oil to
control the pressure and temperature
conditions in the bearing
conditioning of the cooling water to
maintain a uniform input temper-
ature for water-cooled bearing hous-
ings
simulation of low-pressure resistors
in the exhaust gas system, such as
those produced by a catalytic convert-
er and soot particulate filter.
Additional equipment is also available to
adapt the test stand to special test re-
quirements. With a closed-loop unit, for
example, the air exiting the compressor
is forced into circulation. This makes it
possible to vary the operating setting of
the turbines over a wide range independ-
ently of the compressor. Other optional
components include an electrical heater
for tests in the temperature range below
the minimum temperature of the com-
bustion chambers, i.e. below 150 C, and
a thermal shock unit for thermo-mech-
anical tests, Figure 3.
3 Outlook
An important current development goal
is the representation of the exhaust gas
pulsations of turbocharged internal com-
bustion engines on the test stand. This
makes it possible to examine turbochar-
gers even more accurately and reduce
the concluding test phases on the engine
test stand. A prototype test stand is
planned for 2009. Another development
goal is to introduce a new type of engine
map in which lines of the same pressure
condition are represented over the speed
ratio. The speed ratio indicates the ratio
between the circumferential speed of the
turbines and the gas speed of the hot gas
U/C0. The new type of engine map makes
it possible to read the efficiency behav-
iour of the turbines with a pulsating
flow from an engine map derived from a
test stand with a stationary flow.
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