Design and Manufacture of a Low-Cost Data Acquisition Based Measurement System for Dual Fuel Engine Researches

The role of data acquisition based measurement system in the researches is essential since it delivers many advantages compared to the manual arrangement. Nevertheless, its cost is comparatively high, then it becomes an obstacle, particularly for researchers in producing nations. The purpose of the study was to obtain a low-cost data acquisition system which has good performance when used in the research of dual-fuel engines. The study included a selection of variables, components and sensors, programming, and calibration. The Arduino based data acquisition system was chosen, which was relatively cheap and easy programming. The sensors/transducers consisted of three K-type thermocouples, three load cells, one proximity sensor, and one DHT-11 sensor. Programming of data acquisition systems was facilitated by using Arduino IDE software. The display and data recording were done in Microsoft Excel software, with the help of PLX-DAQ software. In this study, a low-cost data acquisition based measurement system had been successfully developed, which had low uncertainty, low hysteresis, and excellent repeatability. It is concluded that the system is very suitable to be used in dual fuel engine researches to measure engine speed, fuel discharge, gas fraction, torque, power, brake specific fuel consumption and brake thermal efficiency. (paper)