Dynamic Port Pressure — NG/H₂ Engine

Understanding intake manifold pressure dynamics in a DOE-funded NG/H₂ engine requires high-fidelity dynamic measurements paired with simulation validation.

Commission a dynamic pressure DAQ system, perform spectral analysis, and correlate with GT-Power 1D simulation to identify root causes of lean combustion instability.

Machined intake ports for Kistler 4007D transducers. Configured AND Phoenix CAS at 2 MHz / 0.1° crank resolution. Performed FFT auto-power and order-domain analysis on 360,000-sample datasets at λ = 1.0, 1.1, and 1.2. Correlated against GT-Power 1D simulation.

Identified dominant intake resonance at 1.5 engine orders (37.5 Hz) — a counter-intuitive finding overriding the expected third-order firing frequency. Implicated manifold geometry as the primary misfire driver, informing a plenum redesign. Validated the 1D simulation framework for design-space exploration.