The Design and Operation of a Turbocharger Test Facility Designed for Transient Simulation

The turbocharger, consisting of a radial or axial flow turbine and an radial flow compressor presents perhaps one of the most challenging tasks to the turbomachinery designer. Due to the necessity of speed changes in the diesel engine, the turbocharger transits a wide variety of operating points in its normal operation. During an engine speed acceleration or deceleration there will be a lag in the required air delivery to the engine, resulting in increased smoke emission and limiting the power delivered by the engine. In order to investigate the dynamic performance of a turbocharged engine, an essential first step must be the development of an adequate model for transient characteristics of the turbocharger. One of the significant problems that must be overcome for the modeling effort to be successful is a detailed experimental description of the transient performance of the device. Towards this end, a facility has been designed and constructed specifically for the purpose of simulating the transient operating environment of a turbocharger. This paper presents the motivation, design, simulation capabilities and operational verification of the Purdue Turbocharger Test Facility.