Interior

Dashboard Drop Weight Impact

In the automotive field, the safety of passengers is key and drives research and development as well as quality control procedures. Each critical component has to be tested.

HDT and Vicat Testing

Using lightweight materials such as thermoplastic polymers can help to meet increasing demand for reducing vehicle weight, fuel consumption, and production cost. It is important to evaluate short-term heat resistance of the materials being used for automotive interiors.

Headliner Peel Testing

In Situ Testing

Not all human interactions with automotive components are purely axial and always vertical. If only using a vertical, axial frame, this can create a challenge for the fixture design or prove to be impossible to test in situ. It is important to test final components in the way that the end user will interact with them.

Knobs and Buttons Tension and Torsion Testing

Button and knobs on an automobile dashboard require bi-axial testing. The force to push a button and the torque to turn a knob must be quantified for a variety of different safety and usability reasons.

Plastics Tensile Testing

Plastics have proven to be the predominant material for developing durable, highly customizable, and cost-effective interior components. Corrosion resistant properties allow finished components to last longer with little to no maintenance. The versatility of plastic allows automotive designers to customize interiors while maintaining low costs.

Rigid Plastics Bend Testing

When testing plastics in flexure, it may be required to measure the strain using an extensometer to provide more accurate deflection data.

Seating Foam Compression Testing

Car manufacturers perform rigorous testing of foam materials to ensure their safety, durability, and comfort. Various tests are performed in order to characterize the material's properties as they relate to the support profile and long-term consumer comfort.

Textiles Testing

In the automotive sector, textiles must be aesthetically pleasing but also be durable to survive years of abuse. Automobile owners will see the interior of the vehicle every time they enter, so the importance of aesthetics cannot be understated. The automotive market is incredibly competitive, so any advances in the material technology of these textiles can provide a substantial advantage.

Seatbelt High Strain Rate Test

In the automotive field, the safety of passengers is key and many research and development efforts have been put to ensure each critical safety component is tested and up to standard. Seatbelts play a big role in car safety as it decreases the momentum of passengers, reducing the force of secondary impacts with interiors and prevents passengers from being ejected from a vehicle in a crash or a sudden stop.