The global powertrain and diesel FIE specialist says its latest research tools will further enhance Gillingham's position as one of the world's leading development sites for clean diesel technologies.
He also says that the new facilities will "provide insights into the performance and durability of advanced fuel-injection systems for medium and heavy-duty vehicles and off-highway applications."
Gillingham already delivers a wide-range of testing regimes for diesel engines, from combustion research using a single-cylinder engine to product-development testing across a suite of twelve engine dynamometers.
It also handles prototype manufacturing for future FIE systems.
Recently implemented test-system enhancements include the upgrading of 25 product-validation machines (all Delphi's heavy-duty common-rail systems are validated to 3,000bar), new metrology systems, plus substantial plant and infrastructure development, with an all-new highly-advanced engine test cell, and a hydraulic-systems research rig.
The new test cell has a fully-transient dynamometer capable of handling medium and heavy-duty engines up to 440kW.
Its impressive range of instrumentation includes real-time measurement of CO, HC, NMHC, NOx, CO2, smoke opacity, particulate number and mass.
All major global test cycles can be run on the rig, including the non-road transient cycle (NRTC), the European Transient Cycle (ETC) and the Worldwide Heavy-duty Transient Cycle (WHTC).
Meanwhile, Gillingham's new hydraulic-systems research rig allows the performance of a complete, six-cylinder fuel-injection system to be investigated across fuel temperatures from -30C to +150C.
