Exhaust emissions are harmful when produced during combustion. The reading of these emissions can give information on what is going in the combustion chamber. In order to read such information you need a gas analyzer. Use of gas exhaust analyzer can be helpful in troubleshooting both emission and drivability concerns. A gas analyzer is a small spectrometer designed for process control and contamination monitoring in exhaust systems. Analyzers are suitable for all applications where high sensitivity is not required but reliable readings are essential.
The gas analyzer is ideally suited to those applications where the sample to be measured has no major interfering gases present, with ranges from as low as 1000ppm up to 100%. It covers a vast number of applications.
When measuring the gas sample it passes through an analysis cell located between a hot wire radiation source and a solid-state detector. After being measured gas analyzer absorbs energy from the source and reduces the amount of radiation reaching the detector. We may find an optical filter that ensures the detector responds only to the gas being measured. A rotating shutter interrupts the radiation from the source so that the detector sees a reference signal on alternate pulses.
Gas analyzers vary according to specification and to gases they measure. But the most important gases for the safety of engines are Carbon Dioxide, Carbon Monoxide, Methane, Propane, Sulphur Hexafluoride, Ammonia and Nitrous Oxide. Those gases are not resulting from cars engines but gas analyzer should test them all.
For example; Carbon Dioxide is a desirable byproduct which is produced when the carbon from the fuel is fully oxidized during the combustion process. The higher dioxide reading, the more engine is operating efficiently. So ideal combustion produces large amounts of CO2 and H2O.
Gas analyzer directly measures the thickness of HC, CO and CO2 in the exhaust of vehicles and inspect the density of NO and O2 using electrochemical sensor to calculate excess air coefficient λ.
Usually, the analyzer has small size, light weight, storage data of exhaust gas measurement. It is suitable for check along the road. It’s utilized for auto-manufacturing factories, vehicle inspection stations and garages.
In upcoming articles I will go into more details about the engine mechanical and electrical problems and how we can use diagnostic scanner to look deeper in the Engine Mechanics and Electrical maintenance problems and Faults and malfunctioning of all the mechanical and electrical parts of engine and will move on to other important systems in the car (like Manual and Automatic Transmissions, Anti-lock brake systems, Stability Control Systems types, Cruise Control systems, the types Suspension systems, body control units systems, Anti-theft alarm systems, Central Locking systems, Instrument cluster, Steering column, Radio, CD player, CD changer , Doors and Windows and Head lights and interior lights systems), and we will try to cover the widest range possible of systems and symptoms and fault codes .