The (almost) empty dynamometer booth. In the center of the picture you can see the actual dynamometer, and in the right hand background the already partly assembled dilution sampler from Caltech.
 
 

The researchers from Caltech are assembling the impressive dilution sampler, which was also developed by them.
 
 

In order to get a "cold start", the vehicles were stored overnight in a cold storage room, usually stacked two vehicles high!
 
 

Just before the test, the cars were pushed onto the dynamometer by a little electric cart with a big rubber bumper.
 
 

Here you see a car on the dynamometer. It actually belongs to one of the graduate students running the experiment at the time.
 
 

The cars have to "drive" a specific profile with accelerations and decelerations. In this picture you can see part of the course. The further to the right the line goes, the faster the car drives. The little white bar in the center of the screen is the actual speed of the car. It has to stay on the white line all the time. We understand that this is rather hard and requires a lot of experience.
 
 

Here you can see another car of a student involved in the study being driven on the dynamometer. Observe the concentration on the face of the driver (a professional from CARB).
 
 

For the people at the site, the runs were a very busy time. The number of particles observed with the real time ATOFMS instruments had to be monitored to make sure the dilutions were appropriate.
 
 

Not only cars but also a diesel truck were tested. Here you can see Phil Silva, one of the graduate students from UC Riverside, checking the spectra collected from the truck exhaust.
 
 

Finally, Jake, one of our ATOFMS instruments, made it on the dynamometer too. No big surprise, emissions were zero!
 
 

Page created by M. Gälli & Keith R. Coffee, Last updated on 1/24/00