I will be graduating in May of 2015 and am currently doing research for a final project in the Mechanical Engineering department at my University. This project focus's on the 3 stages of product development, (eg. Research Design, Construction, Testing). We have an amazing facility that allows us access to some of the equipment major manufacture's would only have access too, which will will result in all in house machining.
The main reason I am bringing it up to you all, is we have recently acquired an 2 stroke Snowmobile Engine dyno at our facility. Its capable of 2 cylinder motors, up to I believe 1500cc.
I'm not positive exactly what I want to do yet, which is why I wanted to pick your brains and see what you guys think. I have a full 12 months to finish, which makes room for plenty of time to design, build, and test.
I've contemplated designing a 2 stroke engine completely from scratch, machine cases, cranks, pistons, etc. in our machine shop, and perform HP and Torque tests on the engine dyno.
Also considered doing something a turbo for a 2 stroke.
I don't necessarily need to build something that no one else ever has. I could improve on something that was already built.
So if you guys have any comments, suggestions, or ideas, let me know and send them my way. It's the last opportunity I will have to utilize the facility and tools I have full access too and would really like to come up with something that was intriguing.
Machining Cases would be interesting by you can achieve much more with quality castings (not as limited to water jacket shapes and design which a two stroke engine is much more temperamental with)
If you want to incorporate machining look at the crankshaft and piston specifically where you can reduce rotating or reciprocating mass and friction which is an issue that applies to just about any engine being produced.
A proper 2 stroke turbo would be interesting but I doubt you would get any real hands on experience by the time you looked at proper port area, height....etc. I bet it would be an optimization task of cylinder ports vs. turbo sizing / ideally specifying your own to be designed at a later date with CFD and intensive modelling of a two stroke cylinder
I am guessing a Low Inertia A/C Dyno ? What software programs are with it and do you have access to cylinder pressure instrumentation? [AVL Indimeter setup would be ideal and be more likely to perk the ears up in industry if they don't have to pay to get you up to speed...if wanting to work in automotive]
Really Hard / Much more time consuming to do any sort of productive dynamometer work without an A/C dyno and a cylinder pressure measurement system (Does not have to be AVL)
Agreed that it is probably a better idea if the task of the project is smaller therefore you can go further in depth and if you want to use certain other facilities do it as a personal bonus that can loosely be tied into the project you are working on ...A YEAR GOES BY SUPER FAST ESPECIALLY IF YOU HAVE OTHER COURSEWORK
One thing i think would be really interesting to investigate in a 2 stroke application that would encompass the majority of what you learned throughout your course and be able to show how this has potential to advance engine design and control in the future is....(If you don't I will once I get done with a couple more pressing projects in the pipeline)
If you have access to a quality dyno and can use cylinder pressure measurement equipment. Build a circuit to register spark ionization energy for cylinder pressure measurement and calibrate it to coincide with what the cylinder pressure actually is. Test over a range of speed and load points. If you can tie that together to where with good certainty your circuit works for that particular engine it should be fairly simple to alter it for another engine (if you are going into the automotive field) Doing this gives the ability to have an addition circuit within the ecu that can now read cylinder pressure for MBT spark timing if desired, fueling control, figuring out mass fraction burned.....among many other things and all it utilizes is some code in the ecu no additional sensors needed.
You can use it for more advanced control that I know is already being worked on that I can't talk about; isn't directly related but would part of it and be hugely beneficial to have on board.
If people put the resources and time into investigating control logic and systems like those that are on 4 stroke engines, VVT, advanced knock control (finally making it onto vehicles)...etc. There is no real reason that a 2 stroke cannot meet or exceed the emissions requirements for years to come but without the issues and complexity of the valvetrain and many other things
If not wanting to do something engine related but want to keep it snowmobile related....
Front suspension design would be killer since it seems no one has really figured it out with proper placement of spindles and getting the correct geometry all squared away against where the COG, Polar Moment of Inertia and rotating mass....This would also need to account for the constantly changing vehicle dynamics of acting similar to a motorcycle and a car based on the roll of the chassis vs the plane of the snow and how the points of contact interact with the surface.....Obviously most don't have it figured out (the M series was close, IQ and Pro are nearly on the money but the rest I would say are not close and are bandaging it with narrower stance or just aimlessly pushing the spindles forward (I have yet to see actual engineering calculations and vehicle dynamics modeling backing up why ______ has chosen +3'', or +4.5 it seems like it was a build and test method)
If interested in this or want to talk further feel free to PM me I have a bit of info on the topic and am slowing collecting it for my own personal interest. Along with some good ally-ways for information on a lot of different topics
