Windmill software helps diesel engine research

Researcher Edward Winward at Loughborough University is investigating diesel engine fuels and lubricants, using the Windmill Logger application to continuously collect data for later processing.

Diesel particulate emissions need to be reduced to produce a cleaner environment.

A recent draft package from the EU proposes that such emissions be slashed by 80%.

Researcher Edward Winward at Loughborough University is investigating diesel engine fuels and lubricants, and looking at how compression ratio and fuel composition affect engine emissions.

To control the research engine and eddy current dynamometer (AG150HS), Winward is using a Froude Consine Texcel V4.

This indicates the current engine speed and torque at its front panel.

Until recently these figures had been recorded manually.

Due to the long duration of the tests this became laborious and prone to error.

Rather than developing an application from scratch to communicate with the controller, he did some research on the subject on the internet and found the free Windmill data acquisition and control software.

Using the Windmill software Winward established that he could command the controller to send data packets with the engine speed, torque and configuration settings.

He could then parse these to extract the required information.

"I found the process of configuring Windmill to do this relatively straightforward and soon had a total of ten separate channels recording the current state of the engine and dynamometer", said Winward, Loughborough University.

He then used the Windmill Logger application to continuously collect data for later processing.

Windmill stores the data in a text file which can be imported into almost any Windows analysis software including Excel.

Ultimately the researchers plan to fully control the engine and dynamometer via a PC and therefore precisely control a test from beginning to end.

Eventually, the Windmill set-up will be used outside the project for research and teaching purposes in the Loughborough Powertrains Laboratory.

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