Laboratories and specialist equipment
Our Division is privileged to possess ~4000 m2 of dedicated laboratory space. Our laboratories are equipped with state-of-the-art measurement equipment and well supported by a fully equipped mechanical workshop and a team of laboratory engineers and technical staff. Key facilities and equipment are listed below.
| A-frame heat exchanger system test facility | Fan casing dia. 1.542 m, variable flow resistance. |
| Axial fan test facility | ISO 5801 Type A, Casing dia. 1.542 m, equipped to measure noise (not to standard). |
| Cross / counterflow test facility | Cooling tower component testing, 1.5 m x 1.5 m cross section, 3.5 kg/(m2s) max. water and air mass flux. |
| Full scale fan / deluge cooling system test facility | 24ft fan, 132 kW, 1490 rpm. |
| Gas dynamics laboratory | 10 bar compressed air for supersonic flow tests. |
| Micro gas turbine (MGT) facility | 16 kWe custom multi-spool turbine (H2/CH4/propane). |
| Hot-wire anemometry | Dantec Dynamics CTA, 8 channel, 36 Ω. |
| Internal combustion laboratory | 5 functioning test cells, including 40 kW gas turbine. |
| Mariendahl experimental farm / SUNREC | 2 ha renewable energy research facility. |
| Particle Image Velocimetry | Dantec Dynamics Nd:Yag laser (200 Hz). |
| Solar rooftop laboratory | 1000 m2, equipped to accommodate both concentrating and non-concentrating technologies. |
| Thermal energy storage test facility | 5 m3 rock bed, 600 °C. |
| Towing tank | L x W x H = 90 x 4.2 x 7 m, vmax = 8.2 m/s. |
| Wind tunnel: heat exchanger characterization | Atmospheric, open loop, Vmax = 3 m3/s. |
| Wind tunnel: subsonic | 1 m x 1.425 m cross-section, vmax= 100 m/s. |
Simulation tools and computational resources
Our simulation and modelling activities are conducted using a wide variety of commercial and open-source software packages (listed below) and supported by access to the South African Centre for High Performance Computing supercomputer (~33 000 compute cores).
