Nostrum High Performance Fuel Injector Test System

Abstract

Nostrum High Performance is an automotive part manufacturing company specializing in fuel systems. Nostrum High Performance, like most Tier 1 fuel injector manufacturers, tests 100% of all fuel injectors produced prior to shipping. Newly-made fuel injectors must undergo a run-in/break-in period equivalent to several thousand firing cycles during which the pintle and pintle seat wear together to create a complete seal. After this run-in period, it is also necessary to check that the injector does not leak, as any amount of fuel leakage can cause a vehicle equipped with such injectors to fail emissions testing. Presently both the run-in and leak testing are done as part of the total injector testing and flow characterization at Nostrum's injector test machines, but since these machines can only test one injector at a time, this represents the bulk of the injector test time and a major bottleneck in production. To speed up production, they requested the design and construction of a fuel injector testing machine that can run 16 fuel injectors at once. This would replace their current equipment that tests one fuel injector at a time. The goal of this project is to eliminate the bottleneck of fuel injector testing in Nostrum's manufacturing. Critical design elements involved pump sizing and selection, filtration requirements, and heat rejection quantification and management within the test machine.