Data Acquisition System Upgradation at Engine Test Cell

Abstract

A flexible, easily configurable data acquisition system (DAS) is designed and built for the testing of engine. It is an Ethernet based data acquisition system. Primary requirements that necessitate the upgradation was the ability to easily configure, save, recall, and modify test configurations, The ability to configure the gain, channel name, and engineering units for each analog channel and to design and develop a DAS that was user friendly and could be operated easily by test cell operators. This is achieved by selecting and installing the appropriate data acquisition software and hardware at Test Cells. The hardware selection comprises the computer type, data acquisition hardware (Opto and Gantner), instrumentation (thermocouple, transducers etc.) and software selection focus on operating system and different application software. Raw data readings (Voltage, Current etc.) are made through data acquisition equipment and those are changed over to engineering units (weights, temperatures, speeds, PSI and so on) by software application to calculate various performance parameters of engine. This data is also checked for the range of acceptable limits (flag, abort, emergency stop) to trigger necessary alarm messages or buzzer where applicable. Test data are stored and archived for future analysis. The described system is intended to set up a fast operating and configurable DAS at low cost consisting of various sensors, acquisition hardware and software applications for acquisition and processing. This system gives improved methods of collecting, recording, and reducing test data for increased test cell utilization at engine test cell. This system provides better data, faster, and at a lower cost.