Engine Testing: The Design, Building, Modification and Use of Powertrain Test Facilities

Index

Chapter 1

Test Facility Specification, System Integration, and Project Organization

Chapter Outline

Introduction: The Role of the Test Facility

Part 1. The Specification of Test Powertrain Facilities

Levels of Test Facility Specification

Note Concerning Quality Management Certification

Creation of an Operational Specification

Feasibility Studies and Outline Planning Permission

Benchmarking

Regulations, Planning Permits, and Safety Discussions Covering Test Cells

Specification of Control and Data Acquisition Systems

Use of Supplier’s Specifications

Functional Specifications: Some Common Difficulties

Interpretation of Specifications by Third-Party Stakeholders

Part 2. Multidisciplinary Project Organization and Roles

Project Roles and Management

Project Management Tools: Communications and Responsibility Matrix

Web-Based Control and Communications

Use of Master Drawing in Project Control

Project Timing Chart

A Note on Documentation

Summary

References

Introduction: The Role of the Test Facility

If a catch-all task description of automotive test facilities was required it might be to gain automotive type approval for the products under test, in order for them to enter the international marketplace.

The European Union’s Framework Directive 2007/46/EC covers over 50 topics (see Figure 2.3) for whole vehicle approval in the categories M (passenger cars), N (light goods) and O (trucks), and there are similar directives covering motorcycles and many types of off-road vehicles. Each EU member state has to police the type approval certification process and have their own government organization so to do. In the UK, the government agency is the Vehicle Certification Agency (VCA) [1].

The VCA, like its European counterparts, appoints technical services organizations to carry out testing of separate approval topics and each of these organizations requires ISO 17025 accreditation for the specific topic in order to demonstrate competency.

Part 1. The Specification of Test Powertrain Facilities

An engine or powertrain test facility is a complex of machinery, instrumentation, and support services, housed in a building adapted or built for its purpose. For such a facility to function correctly and cost-effectively, its many parts must be matched to each other while meeting the operational requirements of the user and being compliant with relevant regulations.

Engine, powertrain, and vehicle developers now need to measure improvements in performance that are frequently so small as to be in the noise band of their instrumentation. This level of measurement requires that every device in the measurement chain is integrated with each other and within the total facility, such that their performance and the data they produce is not compromised by the environment in which they operate, or services to which they are connected.

Powertrain test facilities vary considerably in layout, in power rating, performance, and the markets they serve. While most engine test cells built in the last 20 years have many common features, all of which are covered in the following chapters, there are types of cells designed for very specific and limited functions that have their own sections in this book.

The common product of all these cells is data, which will be used to identify, modify, homologate, or develop performance criteria of all or part of the unit under test (UUT).

All post-test work will rely on the relevance and veracity of the test data; the quality audit trail starts in the test cell.

To build, or substantially modify, a modern powertrain test facility requires the coordination of a wide range of specialized engineering skills; many technical managers have found it to be an unexpectedly wide-ranging complex project.

The task of putting together test cell systems from their many component parts has given rise, particularly in the USA, to a specialized industrial role known as system integration. In this industrial model a company, more rarely a consultant, having relevant experience of one or more of the core technologies required, takes contractual responsibility for the integration of all the test facility components from various sources. Commonly the integrator role has been carried out by the supplier of test cell control systems and the contractual responsibility may, ill-advisedly, be restricted to the integration of the dynamometer and control room instrumentation.

In Europe the model was somewhat different because the long-term development of the dynamometry industry has led to a very few large test plant contracting companies. Now in 2012, new technologies are being used, such as those using isotopic tracers in tribology and wireless communication in transducers; this has meant that the number of individual suppliers of test instrumentation has increased, making the task of system integration ever more difficult. Thus, for every facility build or modification project it is important to nominate the role of systems integrator, so that one person or company takes the contractual responsibility for the final functionality of the total test facility.

Levels of Test Facility Specification

Without a clear and unambiguous specification no complex project should be allowed to proceed.¹

This book suggests the use of three levels of specification:

1. Operational specification, describing what is it for, created and agreed within the user group, prior to a request for quotation (RFQ) being issued. This may sound obvious and straightforward, but experience shows that different groups and individuals, within an industrial or academic organization, can have quite different and often mutually incompatible views as to the main purpose of a major capital expenditure.

2. Functional specification, describing what it consists of and where it goes, created by a user group, when having or employing the necessary skills. It might also be created as part of a feasibility study by a third party, or by a nominated main contractor as part of a design study contract.

3. Detailed functional specification, describing how it all works, created by the project design authority within the supply contract.

Note Concerning Quality Management Certification

Most medium and large test facilities will be part of organizations certified to a Quality Management System equivalent to ISO 9001 and an Environmental Management System equivalent to ISO 14000 series. Some of the management implications of this are covered in Chapter 2 but it should be understood that such certification has considerable bearing on the methods of compilation and the final content of the Operational and Functional specifications.

Creation of an Operational Specification

This chapter will tend to concentrate on the operational specification, which is a user-generated document, leaving some aspects of the more detailed levels of functional specification to subsequent chapters covering the design process.

The operational specification should contain within its first page a clear description of the task for which the facility is being created; too many forget to describe the wood and concentrate on the trees.

Its creation will be an iterative task and in its first draft it need not specify in detail the instruments required, nor does it have to be based on a particular site layout. Its first role will normally be to support the application for budgetary support and outline planning; subsequently it remains the core document on which all other detailed specifications and any requests for quotations (RFQ) are based.

It is sensible to consider inclusion of a brief description of envisaged facility acceptance tests within the operational specification document. When considering what form any acceptance tests should take it is vital they be based on one or more test objects that will be available on the project program. It is also sensible for initial shake-down tests to use a test piece whose performance is well known and that, together with its rigging kit, is readily available.

During the early stages of developing a specification it is always sound policy to find out what instrumentation and service modules are available on the market and to reconsider carefully any part of the operational specification that makes demands that may unnecessarily exceed the operational range that exists.

A general cost consciousness at this stage can have a permanent effect on capital and subsequent running costs.

Because of the range of skills required in the design and building of a greenfield test laboratory, it is remarkably difficult to produce a succinct specification that is entirely satisfactory to all stakeholders, or even one that is mutually comprehensible to all specialist participants.

Producing a preliminary cost estimate is made more difficult by the need for some of the building design details, such as floor loadings and electrical power demand, to be determined before the detailed design of the internal plant has been finalized.

The specification must include pre-existing site conditions or imposed restrictions that may impact on the facility layout or construction. In the UK this requirement is specifically covered by law, since all but the smallest contracts involving construction or modification of test facilities will fall under the control of a section of health and safety legislation known as Construction Design and Management Regulations 1994 (CDM) [2]. Not to list site conditions that might affect subsequent work, such as the presence of contaminated ground or flood risk, can jeopardize any building project and risk legal disputes.

The specification should list any prescribed or existing equipment that has to be integrated within the new facility, the level of staffing intended, and any special industrial standards the facility is required to meet. It is also appropriate that the operational specification document contains statements concerning the general look and feel.

Note that the certification or accreditation of any test laboratory by an external authority such as the United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) or the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has to be the responsibility of the operator, since it is based on approved management procedures as much as the equipment. External accreditation cannot realistically be made a contractual condition placed upon the main contractor.

In summary, the operational specification should, at least, address the following questions:

• What are the primary and secondary purposes for which the facility is intended and can these functions be condensed into a sensible set of Acceptance Procedures to prove the purposes may be achieved?

• What is the geographical location, altitude, proximity to sensitive or hostile neighbors (industrial processes or residential), and seasonal range of climatic conditions?

• What is the realistic range of units under test (UUT)? How are test data (the product of the facility) to be displayed, distributed, stored, and post-processed?

• How many individual cells have been specified, and is the number and type supported by a sensible workflow and business plan?

• What possible extension of specification or further purposes should be provided for in the initial design?

• May there be a future requirement to install additional equipment and how will this affect space requirement?

• How often will the UUT be changed and what arrangements are made for transport into and from the cells, and where will the UUT be prepared for test?

• How many different fuels are required and are arrangements made for quantities of special or reference fuels?

• What up-rating, if any, will be required of the site electrical supply and distribution system? Be aware that modern AC dynamometers may require a significant investment in electrical supply up-rating and specialized transformers.

• To what degree must engine vibration and exhaust noise be attenuated within the building and at the property border?

• Have all local regulations (fire, safety, environment, working practices, etc.) been studied and considered within the specification? (See below.)

• Have the site insurers been consulted, particularly if insured risk has changed or a change of site use is being planned?

Feasibility Studies and Outline Planning Permission

The investigatory work required to produce a site-specific operational specification may produce a number of alternative layouts, each with possible first-cost or operational problems. Part of the investigation should be an environmental impact report, covering both the facility’s impact of its surroundings and the locality’s possible impact on the facility.

Complex techno-commercial investigatory work may be needed, in which case a formal feasibility study, produced by an expert third party, might be considered. In the USA, this type of work is often referred to as a proof design contract. Typically it would cover the total planned facility, but may only be concerned with that part that gives rise to techno-commercial doubt or is the subject of radically differing possible strategies.

The secret of success of such studies is the correct definition of the required deliverable. An answer to the technical and budgetary dilemmas is required, giving clear and costed recommendations, rather than a restatement of the alternatives; so far as is possible the study should be supplier neutral.

A feasibility study will invariably be site specific and, providing appropriate expertise is used, should prove supportive to gaining budgetary and outline planning permission. The inclusion within any feasibility study or preliminary specification of a site layout drawing and graphical representation of the final building works will be extremely useful in subsequent planning discussions. Finally, the text should be capable of easy division and incorporation into the final functional specification documents.

Benchmarking

Cross-referencing with other test facilities or test procedures is always useful when specifying your own. Benchmarking is merely a modern term for an activity that has long been practiced by makers of products intended for sale. It is the act of comparing your product with competing products and your production and testing methods with those of your competitors. Once it is on the market any vehicle or component thereof can be bought and tested by the manufacturer’s competitors, with a view to copying any features that are clearly in advance of the competitor’s own products. There are test facilities built and run specifically for benchmarking competitor’s products.

Maintenance of confidentiality by the restriction of access, without hindrance of work, needs to have been built into the facility design rather than added as an afterthought.

Regulations, Planning Permits, and Safety Discussions Covering Test Cells

In addition to being technically and commercial for viable, it is necessary the new or altered test laboratory to be permitted by various civil authorities. Therefore, the responsible project planner should consider discussion at an early stage with the following agencies:

• Local planning authority

• Local petroleum officer and fire department

• Local environmental officer

• Building insurers

• Local electrical supply authority

• Site utility providers.

Note the use of the word local. There are very few regulations specifically mentioning engine test cells; much of the European and American legislation is generic and frequently has unintended consequences for the automotive test industry. Most legislation is interpreted locally and the nature of that interpretation will depend on the highly variable industrial experience of the officials concerned. There is always a danger that inexperienced officials will overreact to applications for engine test facilities and impose unrealistic restraints on the design or function. It may be useful to keep in mind one basic rule that has had to be restated over many years:

An engine test cell, using volatile fuels, is a zone 2 hazard containment box. While it is possible and necessary to maintain a non-explosive environment, it is not possible to make its interior inherently safe since the unit under test is not inherently safe; therefore, the cell’s function is to minimize and contain the hazards by design and function and to inhibit human access when hazards may be present.

It may also be useful to remind participants in safety-related discussions that their everyday driving experiences take them far closer to a running engine than is ever experienced by anyone sitting at a test cell control desk.

Most of the operational processes carried out within a typical engine or powertrain test cell are generally less potentially hazardous than those experienced by garage mechanics, motor sport pit staff, or marine engineers in their normal working life. The major difference is that in a cell the running automotive powertrain module is stationary in a space and humans could have, unless prevented by safety mechanisms, potentially dangerous access to it.

It is more sensible to interlock the cell doors to prevent access to an engine running above idle state, than to attempt to make the rotating elements safe by the use of close-fitting and complex guarding that will inhibit operations and inevitably fall into operational disuse.

The authors of the high-level operational specification would be ill-advised to concern themselves with some of these minutiae, but should simply state that industrial best practice and compliance with current legislation is required.

The arbitrary imposition of existing operational practices on a new test facility should be avoided until confirmed as appropriate, since they may restrict the inherent benefits of the technological developments available.

One of the restraints commonly imposed on the facility buildings by planning authorities concerns the number and nature of chimney stacks or ventilation ducts; this is often a cause of tension between the architect, planning authority, and facility designers.

With some ingenuity and extra cost these essential items can be disguised, but the resulting designs will inevitably require more upper building space than the basic vertical inlet and outlet ducts. Similarly, noise breakout through such ducting may, as part of the planning approval, have be reduced to the pre-existing background levels at the facility border. This can be achieved in most cases but the space required for attenuation will complicate the plant room layout (see Chapter 6 concerning ventilation).

The use of gaseous fuels such as LPG, stored in bulk tanks, or natural gas supplied through an external utility company will impose special restrictions on the design of test facilities and if included in the operational specification the relevant authorities and specialist contractors must be involved from the planning stage. Modifications may include blast pressure relief panels in the cell structure and exhaust ducting, all of which needs to be included from design inception.

The use of bulk hydrogen, required for the testing of fuel-cell-powered powertrains, will require building design features such as roof-mounted gas detectors and automatic release ventilators.

Specification of Control and Data Acquisition Systems

The choice of test automation supplier need not be part of the first draft operation specification. However, since test automation will form part of the functional specification, and since the choice of test cell software may be the singularly most important techno-commercial decision in placing a contract for a modern test facility, it would seem sensible to consider the factors that should be addressed in making that choice.

The test cell automation software lies at the core of the facility operation; therefore, its supplier will play an important role within the final system integration. The choice therefore is not simply one of a software suite but of a key support role in the design and ongoing development of the new facility.

Project designers of laboratories, when considering the competing automation suppliers, should consider detailed points covered in Chapter 12 and the following strategic points:

• The installed base, relevant to their own industrial sector.

• Does one or more of their major customers exclusively use a particular control system? (Commonality of systems may give a significant advantage in exchange of data and test sequences.)

• Level of operator training and support required.

• Has the control system been proven to work with any or all of intended third-party hardware?

• Is communication with the control modules of the units under test required and is it possible via the designated comms bus?

• How much of the core system is based on industrial standard systems and what is the viability and cost of both hardware and software upgrades? (Do not assume that a system X lite may be upgraded to a full system X.)

• Requirements to use pre-existing data or to export data from the new facility to existing databases.

• Ease of creating your test sequences.

• Ease of channel calibration and configuration.

• Flexibility of data display, post-processing, and exporting options.

A methodical approach requires a scoring matrix to be drawn up whereby competing systems may be objectively judged.

Anyone charged with producing specifications is well advised to carefully consider the role of the test cell operators, since significant upgrades in test control and data handling will totally change their working environment. There are many cases of systems being imposed on users and that never reach their full potential because of inadequacy of training or a level of system complexity that was inappropriate to the task or the grade of staff employed.

Use of Supplier’s Specifications

It is all too easy for us to be influenced by headline speed and accuracy numbers in the specification sheets for computerized systems.

The effective time constants of many powertrain test processes are not limited by the data handling rates of the computer system, but rather by the physical process being measured and controlled. Thus, the speed at which an eddy-current dynamometer can make a change in torque absorption is governed more by the rate of magnetic flux generation in its coils, or the rate at which it can change the mass of water in a water-brake’s internals, rather than the speed at which its control algorithm is being recalculated. The skill in using such information is to identify the numbers that are relevant to the task for which the item is required.

Faster is not necessarily better, but it is often more expensive.

Functional Specifications: Some Common Difficulties

Building on the operational specification, which describes what the facility has to do, the functional specification describes how the facility is to perform its defined tasks and what it will need to contain. If the functional specification is to be used as the basis for competitive tendering then it should avoid being unnecessarily prescriptive.

Overprescriptive specifications, or those including sections that are technically incompetent, are not rare and create a problem for specialist contractors. Overprescription may prevent a better or more cost-effective solution being quoted, while technical errors mean that a company who, through lack of experience, claims compliance and wins the contract will then inevitably fail to meet the customer’s expectations.

Examples of overprescription range from choice of ill-matching of instrumentation to an unrealistically wide range of operation of subsystems.

A classic problem in facility specification concerns the range of engines that can be tested in one test cell using common equipment and a single shaft system. Clearly there is an operational cost advantage for the whole production range of a manufacturer’s engines to be tested in any one cell. However, the detailed design problems and subsequent maintenance implications that such a specification may impose can be far greater than the cost of creating two or more cell types that are optimized for a narrower range of engines. Not only is this a problem inherent in the turn-down ratio of fluid services and instruments having to measure the performance of a range of engines from, say 450 to 60 kW, but the range of vibratory models produced may exceed the capability of any one shaft system.

This issue of dealing with a range of torsional vibration models may require that cells be dedicated to particular types or that alternative shaft systems are provided for particular engine types. Errors in this part of the specification and the subsequent design strategy are often expensive to resolve post-commissioning.

Not even the most demanding customer or specialized software supplier can attempt to break the laws of physics with impunity.

Before and during the specification and planning stage of any test facility, all participating parties should keep in mind the vital question:

By what cost and time-effective means do we prove that this complex facility meets the requirement and specification of the user?

At the risk of over-repetition it must be stated that it is never too early to consider the form and content of acceptance tests, since from them the designer can infer much of the detailed functional specification.

Failure to incorporate these into contract specifications from the start can lead to delays and disputes at the end.

Interpretation of Specifications by Third-Party Stakeholders

Employment of contractors with the relevant industrial experience is the best safeguard against overblown contingencies or significant omissions in quotations arising from user-generated specifications.

Provided with a well-written operational and functional specification, any competent subcontractor, experienced in the relevant area of the powertrain or vehicle test industry, should be able to provide a detailed quote and specification for their module or service within the total project.

Subcontractors who do not have experience in the industry will not be able to appreciate the special, sometimes subtle, requirements imposed upon their designs by the transient conditions, operational practices, and possible system interactions inherent in our industry. In the absence of a full appreciation of the project based on previous experience, inexperienced sales staff will search the specification for hooks on which to hang their standard products or designs, and quote accordingly. This is particularly true of air- or fluid-conditioning plant, where the bare parameters of temperature range and heat load can lead the inexperienced to equate test cell conditioning with that of a chilled warehouse. An escorted visit to an existing test facility should be the absolute minimum experience for subcontractors quoting for systems such as chilled water, electrical installation, and HVAC.

Part 2. Multidisciplinary Project Organization and Roles

In all but the smallest test facility projects, there will be three generic types of contractor with whom the customer’s project manager has to deal. They are:

• Civil contractor

• Building services contractors

• Test instrumentation contractor.

How the customer decides to deal with these three industrial groups and integrate their work will depend on the availability of in-house skills and the skills and experience of any preferred contractors.

The normal variations in project organization, in ascending order of customer involvement in the process, are:

• A consortium working within a design and build or turnkey² contract based on the customer’s operational specification and working to the detailed functional specification and fixed price produced by the consortium.

• Guaranteed maximum price (GMP) contracts, where a complex project management system, having an open cost-accounting system, is set up with the mutual intent to keep the project within an agreed maximum value. This requires joint project team cohesion of a high order.

• A customer-appointed main contractor employing a supplier chain working to the customer’s full functional specification.

• A customer-appointed civil contractor followed by services and system integrator contractor each appointing specialist subcontractors, working with the customer’s functional specification and under the customer’s project management and budgetary control.

• A customer-controlled series of subcontract chains working to the customer’s detailed functional specification, project engineering, site and project management.

Whichever model is chosen, the two vital roles of project manager and design authority (systems integrator) have to be clear to all and provided with the financial and contractual authority to carry out their allotted roles.

Project Roles and Management

The key role of the client, or user, is to invest great care and effort into the creation of a good operational and functional specification. Once permission to proceed has been given, based on this specification and budget, the client has to invest the same care in choosing the main contractor.

When the main contractor has been appointed, the day-to-day role of the client user group should, ideally, reduce to that of attendance at review meetings and being "on