Me 159 Final Project

8/7/2019 Me 159 Final Project

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Final Project

Performance Testing of HydrogenBoosting a 1996 Nissan Altima

Course: ME 159, Dr. Sorensen, Professor Mizuno

Date(s) Performed: 05-14

Date Due: 05-21

Mitchel Thabit

Richard Kasten


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Table of Contents


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Introduction................................................................................................................1


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Procedure...................................................................................................................1


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Data and Results........................................................................................................6


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Discussion................................................................................................................12


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Conclusion................................................................................................................17


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Appendix..................................................................................................................18


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Table of Figures


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Figure 1 Chassis Dynamometer with 1996 Nissan Altima ........................................2


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Figure 2 Fuel Turbine Flow Meters ...........................................................................2


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Figure 3 - Complete Hydrogen Generator and Control Unit Assembly ........................2


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Figure 4 - Hydrogen Generator Tank ..........................................................................2


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Figure 5 - Hydrogen Flow Control Unit ........................................................................3


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Figure 6 - Rotometer ..................................................................................................3


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Figure 7 - Hydrogen Feed to Intake ............................................................................3


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Figure 8 - SuperFlow Dynamometer Control Panel .....................................................3


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Figure 9 - SuperFlow Dynamometer Data Aquisition Unit ...........................................4


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Figure 10 - SuperFlow Dynamometer Control/Display Station ....................................4


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Figure 11 - Testing Facility .........................................................................................4


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Figure 12 - Hydrogen Generator Assembly .................................................................5


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Figure 13 - Power Consumed vs. Hydrogen Flow ........................................................7


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Figure 14 - BSFC vs. HP Plot of Data from 0 H2 Dyno Run ..........................................8


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Figure 15 - HP/Torque Plot of Data From 0 H2 Dyno Run ...........................................9


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Figure 16 - HP/Torque vs. Dyno Roller RPM Plot of Data for 0 H2 Dyno Run ...............9


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Figure 17 - BSFC vs. Time Plot of Data for 0 H2 Dyno Run .......................................10


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Figure 18 - Fuel Turbine Flow vs. Time Plot of Data for 0 H2 Dyno Run ...................10


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Figure 19 - Fuel Consumption vs. HP Plot of Data for 0 H2 Dyno Run ......................11


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Figure 20 - Fuel Consumption vs. Time Plot of Data for 0 H2 Dyno Run ...................11


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Table of Figures


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Figure 1 Chassis Dynamometer with 1996 Nissan Altima ........................................2


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Figure 2 Fuel Turbine Flow Meters ...........................................................................2


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Figure 3 - Complete Hydrogen Generator and Control Unit Assembly ........................2


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Figure 4 - Hydrogen Generator Tank ..........................................................................2


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Figure 5 - Hydrogen Flow Control Unit ........................................................................3


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Figure 6 - Rotometer ..................................................................................................3


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Figure 7 - Hydrogen Feed to Intake ............................................................................3


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Figure 8 - SuperFlow Dynamometer Control Panel .....................................................3


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Figure 9 - SuperFlow Dynamometer Data Aquisition Unit ...........................................4


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Figure 10 - SuperFlow Dynamometer Control/Display Station ....................................4


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Figure 11 - Testing Facility .........................................................................................4


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Figure 12 - Hydrogen Generator Assembly .................................................................5


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Figure 13 - Power Consumed vs. Hydrogen Flow ........................................................7


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Figure 14 - BSFC vs. HP Plot of Data from 0 H2 Dyno Run ..........................................8


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Figure 15 - HP/Torque Plot of Data From 0 H2 Dyno Run ...........................................9


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Figure 16 - HP/Torque vs. Dyno Roller RPM Plot of Data for 0 H2 Dyno Run ...............9


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Figure 17 - BSFC vs. Time Plot of Data for 0 H2 Dyno Run .......................................10


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Figure 18 - Fuel Turbine Flow vs. Time Plot of Data for 0 H2 Dyno Run ...................10


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Figure 19 - Fuel Consumption vs. HP Plot of Data for 0 H2 Dyno Run ......................11


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Figure 20 - Fuel Consumption vs. Time Plot of Data for 0 H2 Dyno Run ...................11


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Figure 20 - Fuel Consumption vs. Time Plot of Data for 0 H2 Dyno Run List of Tables


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Table 2 - ANOVA Table of Data From Spreadsheets ...................................................7


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Table 3 - Averages of Data Collected by SuperFlow for 0 H2 Dyno Run .....................8


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Table 4 - Analytical Results ......................................................................................16


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Table 4 - Analytical Results


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Introduction

Throughout the years there has been much research in the area of fuel additives

that promise to increase the efficiency of the traditional gasoline powered 4 cycleengine. Recently there has been a growing interest in Hydrogen Boosting.

Hydrogen boosting is performed by creating hydrogen from electrolysis that is

powered by the vehicles electrical system. This experiment is important for

students to perform because upon completion of the factorial testing engine

dynamometer experiment, they are familiar with performance characteristics of an

automobiles engine, and the operation and function of a dynamometer. With this

knowledge, the student can now explore atypical ways of increasing the efficiency

and performance of an automobile. This experiment calls for the testing of hydrogen boosting; meaning a small amount of hydrogen will be introduced into the

gasoline combustion process. This process is potentially beneficial for several

reasons; hydrogen has a higher flame-front speed, it also has the ability to ignite at

almost any air to fuel ratio, it has a lower energy of ignition, and a higher resistance

to knock.It is said that hydrogen boosting aids in the combustion of gasoline to

create a more thorough combustion yielding a higher thermal efficiency. Engineers

are the people who are called upon to discover better ways of accomplishing

things, and one of the largest areas of concern in the modern world is theincreasing the efficiency of energy systems.

Procedure

Due to the nature of testing an automobile on a chassis dynamometer extreme

caution much be taken in setup as well as performing the tests of the automobile.

The students should be completely aware of the locations of fire extinguishers and

power controls of the dynamometer. Hearing protection is suggested and protectiveeye goggles are required due to the process of boiling the baking soda solution and

are always required in any laboratory. The first thing the student should do, is to

make sure the vehicle is securely strapped down and wheels chocks are

appropriately placed in front of the non-drive appropriate wires from the

dynamometer console to the fuel turbine flow meters.

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Figure 1 Chassis Dynamometer with

1996 Nissan Altima

Figure 2 Fuel Turbine Flow Meters

Now that the automobile is on the chassis dynamometer, the student can set up the

hydrogen generator and control unit. The student is to mix enough baking soda with

water in the hydrogen generator order to draw 80 amps at full power. Care should

be taken to not exceed 80 amps as this could foul the relays on the control unit. [A

good start point is of a box of baking soda (or 2 oz.) per gallon]. Now the student

is advised to connect the hydrogen feed line to the inlet port on the side of theautomobiles intake, just behind the throttle body. Make sure the rotometer for the

hydrogen is oriented in the appropriate direction of flow between the hydrogen

generator and the automobiles intake port.

2

FuelFuel


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Figure 3 - Complete Hydrogen Generatorand Control Unit Assembly

Figure 4 - Hydrogen Generator Tank

Figure 5 - Hydrogen Flow Control Unit

Figure 6 - Rotometer

3

BasicStamp

Pulse WidthManaging

ControlPotentiome

Amperage

12V PWM (ORANGE

Ground (Green

HydrogenLine (to


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Figure 7 - Hydrogen Feed to Intake Figure 8 - SuperFlow DynamometerControl Panel

Now that set up has been completed, the student may now turn on the

dynamometers computer, open the WinDyn Superflow dynamometer program and

begin testing the performance of the vehicle. It is advised that once the car is

started that it be brought up to cruising freeway speed (65mph) and allowed to run

at that speed for a short while in order for the engine to achieve normal operating

temperature. It should be noted that the most accurate results will come from the

use of the cruise control function on the automobile.

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Figure 9 - SuperFlow Dynamometer DataAquisition Unit

Figure 10 - SuperFlow DynamometerControl/Display Station

Figure 11 - Testing Facility

The test will be run automatically by a student-written program, using a

programming language native to the Superflow software. This program will allow

the student to simply press a Start button on the control module and will

automatically log data that is pertinent to the experiment for two minutes at a time,

then it will transfer the data to the computers hard drive that can then be exported

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into an Excel spreadsheet. It is advised to run two tests for each hydrogen level and

average the results to ensure accuracy. When running a test where hydrogen is

being introduced, the student should adjust the hydrogen control unit to the

appropriate hydrogen flow increment by reading the flow level on the rotometer as

the potentiometer is adjusted. The student is to make 2 dynamometer runs at eachhydrogen level and average the results to ensure accuracy. The results gathered by

the student can then be used in the equations for power, BSFC, and thermal

efficiency and then compared with the automobiles baseline performance data.

Once the data and performance measurements are compared, it can be confidently

be determined if hydrogen boosting provides an increase in the vehicles road

performance.

Figure 12 - Hydrogen Generator Assembly

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Data and Results

Due To the Large quantity of data, only averages, plots, and results will be shownhere. The raw data consists of 30 excel spreadsheet tables with over 10000000recorded values.

Table 1 Corrected Vital Data

HHO Flow(cuft/hr) hp

lb/hrGasoline

BSFC MPG

0.00014.412 10.389

0.715

35.545

0.000

14.1

46 10.402

0.7

17

35.5

02

0.00014.354 10.407

0.716

35.484

0.00014.394 10.432

0.719

35.399

0.00014.397 10.348

0.713

35.689

0.74814.682 11.435

0.788

32.296

0.74814.573 11.428

0.787

32.315

0.74814.611 11.468

0.790

32.201

0.74814.633 11.290

0.778

32.711

0.74814.732 11.536

0.794

32.013

1.49714.715 11.734

0.808

31.473

1.49714.565 11.756

0.810

31.413

1.49714.675 11.707

0.806

31.546

1.49714.658 11.816

0.814

31.254

1.49714.437 11.712

0.807

31.532

2.24514.518 11.585

0.798

31.877

2.24514.403 11.455

0.789

32.239

2.245 14.4 11.680 0.8 31.6

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86 05 18

2.24514.519 11.521

0.793

32.055

2.24514.367 11.359

0.782

32.510

2.99314.545 10.711

0.738

34.479

2.99314.602 10.785

0.743

34.241

2.99314.561 10.751

0.738

34.349

2.99314.313 10.694

0.737

34.534

2.99314.438 10.802

0.744

34.187

4.10014.430 10.739

0.740

34.387

4.100 14.547 10.951 0.754 33.722

4.10014.757 10.653

0.734

34.667

4.10014.648 10.957

0.755

33.704

4.10014.679 10.926

0.753

33.799

Average14.527

Table 2 - ANOVA Table of Data From SpreadsheetsANOVA

Source of Variation SS df MS F P-value F crit

BetweenGroups

63.02875 5

12.60575

178.1987

3.7072E-18

2.620654

Within Groups1.6977

56 240.0707

4

Total64.726

51 29

SUMMARY

Groups Count Sum Averag

eVarian

ce

0 5177.61

9435.523

890.0112

91

0.74828399 5161.53

7232.307

440.0651

72

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1.49656798 5157.21

7931.443

580.0139

55

2.24485497 5160.29

8132.059

630.1158

23

2.99313596 5171.78

9934.357

990.0220

48

4.1 5170.27

8834.055

760.1961

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Figure 13 - Power Consumed vs. Hydrogen Flow

Table 3 - Averages of Data Collected by SuperFlow for 0 H2 Dyno Run

EngSpdWheelPwr

WheelTrq Ful1-2 BSFC Fuel1M Fuel2M

RPM Hp lbs-ft lbs/hr lb/hph lbs/hr lbs/hr

2415.165 14.1464 30.758675 10.18975 0.720676 118.1015 107.9116

Figure 14 - BSFC vs. HP Plot of Data from 0 H2 Dyno Run

Figure 15 - HP/Torque Plot of Data From 0 H2 Dyno Run

Figure 16 - HP/Torque vs. Dyno Roller RPM Plot of Data for 0 H2 Dyno Run

Figure 17 - BSFC vs. Time Plot of Data for 0 H2 Dyno Run

Figure 18 - Fuel Turbine Flow vs. Time Plot of Data for 0 H2 Dyno Run

Figure 19 - Fuel Consumption vs. HP Plot of Data for 0 H2 Dyno Run

Figure 20 - Fuel Consumption vs. Time Plot of Data for 0 H2 Dyno Run

DiscussionFor this experiment, some minor fabrication had to be done in order to create the

hydrogen gas generator. An electrical component had to be created that would

allow the user to incrementally adjust hydrogen levels from zero up to 2.993 ft 3 per

hour which occurred at 100 amps, which is approximately the most an automobiles

charging system can handle. This was achieved from creating an RC time circuit on

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a Basic stamp in conjunction with two 40 amp solid state relays. The code for the RC

Time circuit used is:

' {$STAMP BS2}' {$PBASIC 2.5}

'PIN 15 relaysP PIN 0result VAR Wordy VAR Wordx VAR WordMain:DO

HIGH 15 ' charge the capPAUSE 1 ' for 1 msRCTIME 15, 1, result ' measure RC discharge timey=((result/2)/100)+1

'DEBUG DEC ? y ' display result

IF y135 THENLOW P

ELSEIF y>1 THENGOTO PWM1

ENDIFLOOP

PWM1:DOLOW P

HIGH 15 ' charge the capPAUSE 1 ' for 1 msRCTIME 15, 1, result ' measure RC discharge timey=((result/2)/100)+1

'DEBUG "pwm"'DEBUG DEC ? y ' display result

HIGH P

IF y135 THENLOW PGOTO Main

ENDIFx=(136-y)

PAUSE xLOOP

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Also a hydrogen generator had to be constructed in which the actual electrolysis

was to take place in. To create this device, a stainless steel pot was used, holes

were drilled in the lid and stainless all-thread was used to send the electrical current

to the stainless steel electrodes, which were stainless steel light switch face panels.

Due to old components of the dynamometer showing their age, the absorption unit

very slowly loses its load. This can be seen in Figure 15 as a linear decrease in both

the horsepower and torque. Due to this problem, the average data values from run

to run were not identical, so in order to correct this problem, linear regression was

11

Basic

Stamp / RC

40 Amp

Solid

StainlessSteel

StainlessSteel

Stainless


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applied to the BSFC vs. HP and fuel consumption vs. horsepower data to adjust for

the minor differences in HP for each run to obtain more accurate results for fuel

mileage.

According to the data collected from all of the tests run in this experiment, it can be

concluded that hydrogen boosting an automobile has no effect on the efficiency of

the vehicle. This conclusion can be made by examining the ANOVA table which was

constructed to determine whether the data was significantly different between the

run groups. The factor being analyzed is the different amounts of hydrogen being

introduced into the engine. Collecting data for the experiment was not particularly

difficult, as the SuperFlow WinDyn system allows the user to create custom

programs that can be run using the dynamometer and desired data can be

collected. This is the program written to collect all of the required data from thedynamometer for a 2 minute runtime:

Test Profile: FLOWTEST

Files:

Test: C:\Users\Engine Lab\Desktop\altima test\FLOWTEST.TPF

Config: C:\windyn\XConsole\config\RACER.CFA

Test Description:

________________________________________

________________________________________

This test profile can be selected and run by the dyno operator

Test Profile Properties:

End Test Ramp Time = 0.0 seconds

ServoV Control Mode = Manual

Number of Test Steps = 39

Test Profile Steps:

1. *** ***2. *** Written by Mitchel Thabit ***

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3. *** ***4. *** Nov. 8th 2009 ***5. *** ***6. *** REV. MAR. 7TH 2010 ***7. *** ***8. Erase ALL recorded data9. Set Memory[9] = 0.000

10. Display1: [Flowrate Measurement ] on console11. Display2: [Press "A" key to start test ] on console12. Display3: [Press "D" key to End ] on console13. Label Soft Keys (A-E): [Start End ]14. When Soft Key "A" is pressed , then GOTO "RECORD AT 100"15. When Soft Key "A" is pressed , then GOTO "END TEST"16. GOTO {THIS_STEP}17. RECORD AT 10018. Erase Soft Key labels19. Erase ALL console messages20. KEEP GOING21. Set Memory[9] = 1.00022. Display1: [Recording Data... ] on console23. Label Soft Keys (A-E): [End Test ]24. Record Data every 0.05 seconds25. When Soft Key "A" is pressed , then GOTO "END OF STEPS"26. GOTO {THIS_STEP}27. END OF STEPS28. Erase Soft Key labels29. Erase ALL console messages30. Set Memory[9] = 0.00031. Stop automatic data recording32. Display2: [TEST COMPLETED. SAVING DATA.... ] on console33. Save recorded data to auto-increment file on computer34. Cancel all WHEN requests35. Erase ALL console messages36. Display2: [ Test has been saved. ] on console37. WAIT for 4.0 seconds38. END TEST39. End Test

2005 SuperFlow Technologies Group. All Rights Reserved.

After a first law analysis of the system being tested in the experiment, the mileageof the automobile with hydrogen boosting could be determined. Also the efficiencies

for the two main components in play in this experiment could be determined from

this analysis. The hydrogen generator was found to have an efficiency of 24.75%

and the power-train of the automobile has an efficiency of 18.624%. The percent

error in this experiment was a result of a higher predicted fuel mileage value than

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the actual test data proved for each run. The highest percentage of error occurred

at the flow value of 1.497 ft 3/hr with a value of 9.055%. It is hard to know what is

causing the actual fuel mileage to be lower than the predicted fuel mileage. A

possible cause is electrical generation losses. Alternator efficiency was not

measured, and was assumed to be ideal, this could be a significant cause of error.

Table 4 - Analytical Results

14

hr Current (A)

Voltage (V)

Power (W)

Power(hp)

HHO(lb/hr)

Hydrogen(lb/hr)

Powerhydrogen(HP)

NetPower(HP)

generatorefficiency

vehiclepowerrequired(HP)

Predicted MPG

748 24.7 6.7 165.5 0.222 0.025 0.003 0.057 -0.165 0.256 14.692 35.162

497 40.0 8.2 328.0 0.440 0.050 0.006 0.114 -0.326 0.258 14.853 34.781

245 55.0 9.6 528.0 0.708 0.075 0.008 0.170 -0.538 0.241 15.064 34.293

993 69.9 9.8 685.0 0.919 0.100 0.011 0.227 -0.691 0.247 15.218 33.946

100 80.0 11.9 951.2 1.276 0.137 0.015 0.311 -0.964 0.244 15.491 33.348


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Conclusion This experiment was surprisingly accurate considering dated chassis dynamometer

equipment and student construction of important components such as the hydrogen

generator. With appropriate funding, the equipment could be updated and

professionalized and extremely accurate results could very easily be obtained. With

the conclusion of this experiment the student can now either verify or reject the

hypothesis that hydrogen boosting a vehicle is truly advantageous. The student can

use the knowledge gained from performing this experiment to research alternate

performance or efficiency boosting ideas. Also, by completing this experiment the

student is now equipped with the knowledge of how to set up and use a chassis

dynamometer, as well as gather data from said dynamometer. Analytical and actualresults show that hydrogen boosting this particular vehicle has no significant effect

on the vehicles freeway cruising fuel mileage. Although statistical analysis says that

there is no significant difference, visual inspection of the data shows a trend that

hydrogen boosting this particular vehicle decreases the fuel mileage.

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Appendix Hand Calculations

General Correction Equations for Rotometers

Me 159 Final Project

Documents

Transcript of Me 159 Final Project