Full Vehicle Testing
THE CHALLENGE
Ever-shorter development cycles for cars and commercial vehicles impose significant time constraints on producers and developers. A multitude of functional and durability tests have to be conducted on prototypes, during which components or sub-systems of the final vehicle are analyzed on a variety of different component and multi-axial test facilities.
Testing of full vehicles is required to validate the vehicle structure and is often carried out on 4-poster systems. However, purely vertical excitation will not reveal all weak points in the vehicle structure. Complex chassis designs and monocoque structures necessitate increasingly precise and, above all, repeatable reproduction of road loads in the laboratory. This requires realistic input of all forces and moments encountered during a track test and the integration of all active vehicle components.
Our Solution
Instron's spindle coupled full-vehicle test rig enables brake, camber and steering moments to be introduced into the dummy wheels, in addition to vertical, longitudinal and lateral loads, thus providing the capability to reproduce even harshest road conditions and severe driving maneuvers in the test laboratory under conditions closely resembling actual road-driving conditions.
The use of an advanced electronic controller allows the synchronous control of active vehicle components in addition to the accurate reproduction of road load data at the wheel. To react braking forces or driving maneuvers, vehicle body restraint systems or longer stroke test systems are available.