Water brake dyno setup

[EmGo]

The 4 square is only for testing horsepower through a gearbox, it doesn't act like a dyno.

Depends on what he is using the dyno for. If he's using it to give people a piece of paper says "600 hp at 5200 rpm" then no. But if he wants to use it to load the engine, run it in a bit, check for leaks and bad assembly, then yes. In fact, maybe better for that because dynos generally are not intended for lengthy test times.

edit: should have said potentially yes, it's just an idea of a way to avoid having to dump all that heat, if he plans to run for any length of time.

On the other hand, he could make it a seasoal business and just run the dyno in winter to heat the shop That might not be that terrible an idea either, if he could stockpile enough proven engines to make it through the summer ... or at least use the waste heat usefully part of the year.

 

[Turbowerks]

A little late but a retarder off of a class 8 truck would hold probably 700-800 hp or more since they are driveline speed. A eddy current controller is a pretty simple build. Most are air cooled.

 

[triumph406]

much less water use and you could run the engine in for much longer - say even half an hour if you wanted, because most dynos are really intended/designed for short-preiod use.

I worked at Frontier in the mid 90's on a UAV helicopter project. Specifically a 6cyl 6L diesel. I was designing the internals. At the time the helicopter was being flown with a highly modified 6cyl Subaru. I remember the engine builder they had not being impressive. He was tasked with making getting more power from the Subaru, and keep it reliable. The engine failed twice in flight, causing extensive and expensive damage to the helicopter.

So the chief engineer (Ex Lotus chief engineer) went to the UK to look at ready to install Subaru Rally motors. He went to a facility that was running up a new subaru engine. As he was talking to the engineer, the engineer ran the engine upto full power, and said (as one does in England) "let's get a cuppa tea" So they went away, and talked details cost (35kukp at the time) delivery etc, for maybe 30 minutes. Then went back to the dyno room where the engine was still running flat out, and continued to do so for another 30 minutes before they shut it down. That setup would have been ideal. Powers to be didn't buy the rally subaru, and went on to have at least one more failure.

I'd like to have seen how they dissapated what was maybe 200kw of heat for 60 minutes.

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My Dad used to make load banks for Petter diesel, when they were selling gen-sets. These were large steel boxes full of heater elements. They would test the generator by attaching the generator to these load banks. Each bank could handle 50Kw, and the bigger the generator the more load banks they would put in series. I remember the load banks as at the time i was 10-11 years old and able to get my hands inside these assemblies to tighten the fasteners, my dads hands being too large. After a day of doing that I might get an ice-cream.

 

[GregSY]

Water ponds....25 years back, I was talking to an engineer at one of the major oil companies. They had a process for making carbon fiber where they needed a lot of weight for a short duration of 3-4 hours, and they realized they could pump water out of the nearby pond into a tank, then pump it back when the no longer needed its weight. The idea was killed by the good folks at the EPA, who told them that they could pump all the water they wanted out of the pond, but it would need to treat the water before it could be pumped back into the pond. The oil company pointed out that it was the same water they had just pumped out, but that sort of logic evaded the EPA....

 

[moonlight machine]

Water ponds....25 years back, I was talking to an engineer at one of the major oil companies. They had a process for making carbon fiber where they needed a lot of weight for a short duration of 3-4 hours, and they realized they could pump water out of the nearby pond into a tank, then pump it back when the no longer needed its weight. The idea was killed by the good folks at the EPA, who told them that they could pump all the water they wanted out of the pond, but it would need to treat the water before it could be pumped back into the pond. The oil company pointed out that it was the same water they had just pumped out, but that sort of logic evaded the EPA....

Logic? EPA? Now there is an oxymoron