Provide Real-time Viscosity Monitoring for Diesel Common Rail Test Stands

Cambridge Viscosity (USA) recently installed a fourth in-line viscometer for monitoring the viscosity of diesel fuel on common rail test stands at Delphi’s facility in Park Royal, UK. Delphi Automotive is a leading global supplier of electronics and technologies for automotive, commercial vehicle and other market segments. The site in Park Royal specializes in the development of high-precision fuel injection equipment for commercial vehicles, enabling manufacturers to meet increasingly stringent emissions legislation.

Such real-time viscosity monitoring systems bring innovative approaches to age-old problems. At Delphi’s Technical Centre in Park Royal, viscometers from Cambridge Viscosity are installed on the test stands to monitor the changes to the viscosity of the fuel. These are installed before and after the injectors to monitor any changes to the performance over time. Before purchasing the viscometers, technicians had to pull used fuel samples, then send them for lab for analysis and wait for the results. Now in-process viscosity is measured in real-time, which means changes in the system can be identified immediately instead of days later.

Andrew Dodds, the Engine Test Department Manager at Delphi, Park Royal chose the Cambridge viscometers because “they meet all of the major engineering requirements criteria “. These criteria were real time measurement capability – constant knowledge of the test fluid condition,, industry standard output – ease of integration into the test stand, off the shelf technology – validated in numerous industrial applications and low maintenance – maximum utilization of the test stand.

The units purchased by the Delphi heavy duty business were installed and operational on the test stand, producing useful data within hours of implementation.”