EVALUATION OF AUTOMOTIVE FUEL FLOWMETERS

Fuel economy measurement procedures being developed by the Transportation Systems Center of the Department of Transportation require flowmeters to measure the gasoline consumed by the engine of an automobile either on the road or on a dynamometer. The contribution of the National Bureau of Standards to this work was to ascertain the environment in which the flowmeters will probably be used, to develop procedures for measuring their performance in a laboratory simulation of that environment, and to carry out illustrative measurements on a number of flowmeters. This report discusses: (1) the environment of the flowmeter in an automobile, i.e., flowmeter temperature; fuel temperature, pressure, density, viscosity, color, opacity, flow pulsations, back flow, and swirl due to elbows; line voltage fluctuations; electromagnetic radiation from ignition; vehicle attitude with respect to the vertical; and vibration, (2) the test set-up and procedure used for evaluating and calibrating these meters in the laboratory under conditions simulating the automotive environment, (3) a discussion of possible sources and magnitudes of errors in the calibration, and (4) results of illustrative tests on seven flowmeters.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • Sponsored in part by Department of Transportation, Washington, D.C. Office of the Assistant Secretary for Systems Development and Technology.
• Corporate Authors:

  National Bureau of Standards

  Institute for Basic Standards
  Washington, DC  United States  20234

  Department of Transportation

  Office of Systems Development and Technology, 1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Authors:
  • ROBERTSON, B
  • Baumgarten, G P
• Publication Date: 1977-6

Media Info

• Pagination: 99 p.

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Automobiles; Calibration; Dynamometers; Environmental engineering; Flow measurement; Flowmeters; Fuel consumption; Gasoline; Temperature measurement; Vehicle power plants
• Old TRIS Terms: Automobile engines; Environmental tests
• Subject Areas: Energy; Highways; Safety and Human Factors; Vehicles and Equipment;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00159324
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: National Technical Information Service
• Report/Paper Numbers: NBS-TN-943, HS-020 979
• Files: HSL, NTIS, TRIS, USDOT
• Created Date: Aug 31 1983 12:00AM