Our range of combustion air and cell ventilation products has established SCP as one of the leading providers, and we can meet all of your custom air and fluid conditioning requirements.
Possibly the best performing combustion air conditioning systems available. Temperature only, temperature and humidity or pressure temperature and humidity conditioning. Dial in the conditions you want and a CAHU will deliver consistent air. Standardisation or simulating differing ambient conditions a CAHU has you covered. Dynamic flow rate setpoint stability is a big selling point.
Sierra-CP can provide you with a range of altitude products. We have mid level units for 800mBar and high level units for 620mBar, add to this sub zero and high temperature conditioning as well and modular units to add onto existing products. These are essential products for modern Emissions testing requirements.
Supporting the trend of down sizing by using turbo chargers SCP developed a boost simulation rig over 10 years ago. They condition the air supplied by a suitable compressor, to meet temperature and pressure requirements in dynamic situations up to 8Bar. Latest addition is humidity control at pressure.
This product originated back in the 1990’s to overcome severe atmospheric conditions and eliminate the need for correction factors and conversions during testing by creating real conditions.
It soon become one of our most popular products and evolved into several forms for differing requirements.
The original device was a positive pressure blower used at a hot and high altitude test site to allow simulation of cooler and higher pressure sea level conditions.
The success of this device resulted in Temperature only (T), Temperature and Humidity (TH) and Pressure Temperature and Humidity (PTH). the CAHU now offers positive and negative pressure correction and is generally used for either standardisation (25C – 50%RH – 1013mBar) or as a simulator for different regions and ambient conditions around the world.
This has huge benefits by enabling pre-setup to race circuits or avoiding costly trips with vehicle teams.
SCP have been making altitude simulators for many years, but they were originally relatively modest devices for +/-80mBar correction.
A recent trend for two specific applications has resulted in the generation of a Mid and a High altitude product.
Mid Altitude Simulation (MAS) provides conditions to approximately 800mBarA (80kPa), we have an extraction system for the exhaust side of the engine and either a passive solution for the intake – using the engine as a pump, or an active solution for the intake side, for start up and low flow correlation.
High Altitude Simulation (HAS) is a comprehensive solution with a specialist extract device which couples the intake and extract side together. This enables test pressures of around 600mBarA (60kPa) to be created.
Added to these pressure conditions Sierra CP can also include temperature conditioning and integration of a more standard CAHU device to ‘fill in the blanks’ of the test envelope.
They are also designed to be modular so that they can be switched between neighbouring test cells with the correct infrastructure.
The Sierra boost rig was originally designed for investigative work on modern and future research engines requiring boost values of around 2-8BarA delivered to the engine. This challenge evolved to require some heating and cooling capability based on test profiles.
The Sierra boost rig gives dynamic control of pressure and steady state control of temperature of the engine supply air, to simulate turbo charger conditions. High pressure air is provided by a separate compressor unit.
The current Boost Rig can also be supplied with a humidity control capability to vary the humidity level within the high pressure air stream.
Sierra CP can provide upgrades to existing facilities or complete new installations. Our unique design provides a better environment for testing.
The ventilation systems are high speed solutions to better replicate cooling conditions. They can include heating and cooling elements for regulation of the test cell environment.
Generally a recirculation system is employed to allow use of the extracted energy, this provides efficiency savings because the rejected heat is used instead electrical energy, with a proportion of the extract hot air being combined with to the incoming fresh air.
The full ventilation systems have a CADET control system running the ventilation component for lots of control options. The system has twin variable speed fans, these are balanced to provide a slight negative pressure in the test cell. The flow can be altered dramatically to provide alternative conditions, for lower power engines or for a maintenance mode with a gentler comfort flow rate.
The ventilation system can be linked to the safety circuits and shutdown in case of a thermal event. Then set to maximum throughput to remove air and extinguisher elements from the cell. The exhaust extract systems are based on a variable drive single system per test cell. The exhaust system can have an integrated control valve.
Based around the 660kW Transient AC Dyno, Prodrive’s new powertrain facility at Banbury will help accelerate the development of a new generation of alternative-fuel and hybrid propulsion units.
To support the future growth of Xtrac’s business they engaged with SCP to supply two test cells to enable EOL quality pass off and future development of existing and new products.
SCP designed and installed two new test cells each with multiple dyno’s which can be positioned to support a variety of test piece configurations.
Sierra CP designed and constructed six highly configurable test cells to meet the requirements for the development of advanced engine and powertrains, including hybrids and EVs.
