An Inexpensive Flow-Bench for Mechanical Engineering Labs

A flow-bench is a valuable piece of lab equipment useful for various mechanical engineering flow experiments.For example, in an Internal Combustion (IC) engines course students can test modifications to cylinder heads (valve lift, valve size, porting, etc) on such a flow-bench.An experimental device like this could also be used in a general fluid mechanics and instrumentation course.This paper describes the design, construction and testing of a flow-bench built for less than $1500.Commercial flow-benches can cost from $50,000 to $500,000.The current flow-bench has the capacity for air flow up to 300 CFM (cubic feet per minute) and a pressure drop of 28 inches of water.Experimental data were taken on a standard 5.3 liter aluminum Chevrolet truck engine head and were compared to existing data in the literature.Specific details are provided so that other universities can fabricate such equipment.