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	SwRI engineers provide rapid and cost-effective endurance testing and competitive engine evaluation.

Measuring Real-Time Wear in Operating Engines

For more than 40 years, Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) has used radioactive tracer techniques to make highly accurate and sensitive real-time wear measurements in operating engines. These capabilities are particularly important in light of the harsh operating and environmental conditions imposed on today's high-performance engines, in which performance as well as low emissions levels increasingly depend on close-tolerance operation with minimal wear. Using sophisticated instrumentation, SwRI studies real-time wear, detecting wear and wear rate changes instantly.

Advantages of radioactive tracer

measurement techniques include:

• Cost-effective tests

• Repeatable measurements

• Real-time wear data

• Meaningful results for short tests

• Easily measured transients

• Identification of cause and effect relationships

• Association of wear with specific design parameters, fuel and lubricant characteristics, and engine operating conditions

Real-Time Engine Oil Consumption Measurement

SwRI, with more than 40 years of experience in engine, fuels, and lubricants research, has developed an

innovative sulfur dioxide (SO2)-tracer technique that permits continuous, real-time measurement of lubricating oil consumption in a wide range of diesel and spark-ignition (SI) engines.

	SwRI measures transient, engine-out oil consumption in real time.

 The SwRI-proprietary, real-time oil consumption (RTOC) technique has evolved into a reliable and sensitive instrument for research and development applications. Designated as the RTOC-III™ apparatus, the sophisticated SO2-tracer system offers several advantages over other methods, including:

• Reduced test duration
  Oil consumption for one operating condition, typically acquired in 8 minutes, allows real-time data for a 21-point, steady-state map to be generated within one working day.

• Accelerated multicylinder engine testing
  The time required to test multicylinder engines is reduced by testing different components in each cylinder. For example, the testing program for a V8 engine can be accelerated eightfold.

• True real-time transient capability
  Using highly repeatable, real-time transient data, SwRI engineers recommend engine modifications that extend oil change intervals and prolong the life of emission control devices, including three-way catalysts.

• Radioactive tracer method
  Our ability to combine two radioactive tracer technologies allows near real-time measurement of engine wear and engine oil consumption simultaneously with the measurement of engine-out emissions, during controlled laboratory testing.

For more information about component wear measurement capabilities at SwRI or how you can contract with SwRI, please contact Jim Carroll at jcarroll@swri.org or (210) 522-5015.
 

| Emissions R&D | Engine, Emissions & Vehicle Research Division | SwRI Home |

Southwest Research Institute^® (SwRI^®), headquartered in San Antonio, Texas, is a multidisciplinary, independent, nonprofit, applied engineering and physical sciences research and development organization with 12 technical divisions.

October 29, 2009