Test Cell Design & Commissioning
High-pressure combustion test facilities, designed by engineers who have run test campaigns in them.
A combustion test cell is an unforgiving piece of infrastructure. Undersize the air supply and every future campaign inherits the limit. Get the fuel system controls wrong and operators spend years fighting response lag. Skimp on protection logic and a single failed test article can cost more than the facility upgrade would have.
We design test cells from the perspective of the people who use them, because we have been those people. Dr. Bassam Abdelnabi has specified and built high-pressure industrial test cells end to end, with the auxiliary air, fuel, quench, measurement, and control systems they need. Adam Bailey has led the mechanical design of complex combustion test rigs across GE heavy-duty frames for three decades.
The same practice covers the systems around the cell: data acquisition and test automation that raise daily data output, and combustion expertise to make sure what you measure means something.
Capabilities
High-pressure combustion test cell design, from concept through commissioning
Specification and procurement of air, fuel, quench, and measurement systems
Gaseous fuel systems: natural gas, hydrogen blends, nitrogen doping, propane blending
Liquid fuel systems, including dual-mode dry fuel and fuel-water emulsion operation
Emissions sampling systems and probe design for high-temperature exhaust
Data acquisition and control system specification and replacement
Test asset protection logic and emergency sequencing
Test execution automation and auto-mapping for faster campaigns
ASME-code pressure vessels and static equipment, delivered to inspector acceptance
Facilities we have delivered
Common questions
Do you take responsibility for the whole facility or just the design?
Either, but we are at our best end to end: requirements, design, specification, vendor selection, procurement support, installation oversight, and commissioning. Several of our case studies cover exactly that scope, including fuel supply expansion and a dual-mode liquid-fuel pumping system.
Can you upgrade a working facility without long downtime?
That constraint shapes most of our facility work. We plan around test campaigns, stage installations, and commission in windows the operation can tolerate. The fuel systems and DAQ replacements we have delivered went into facilities that could not simply stop testing.
What fuels can your designs handle?
Natural gas at high flows, hydrogen and H2 blends, syngas, propane blending, nitrogen doping, and liquid fuels from diesel to crude oil, including fuel-water emulsions. Fuel flexibility is usually why clients call us rather than a general mechanical contractor.
Do you also design the measurement side?
Yes. Emissions sampling trains, probe and rake design for high-temperature exhaust, data acquisition systems, and the protection logic that keeps an expensive test article safe when something lets go.
Planning a test facility, or fighting one?
Tell us what you need to test and at what conditions. We will tell you what the facility has to look like.