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Accelerating Automotive Excellence in the Test Lab

The automotive industry has many regulations and requirements in place to ensure vehicle safety and reliability of all vehicles. The responsibility for validating these standards of quality primary falls on the automotive original equipment manufacturer, who often rely on test labs to assess product specifications, safety, quality, and durability. Working together, the OEM and test labs are responsible for confirming regulations and requirements are met on every vehicle, part, component and sub-component that hits the market.

Interface understands that test labs need the very best in terms of testing devices and equipment. Interface, a supplier to automotive testing labs for decades, has a broad range of products used in all types of torque, force, and weighing applications. Accelerating Automotive Excellence With Interface Testing Lab Solutions is a new case study that details common challenges and solutions offered by Interface to fit the requirements of today’s modern automotive industry testing lab.

Our products are used all types automotive testing lab applications. These products include:

  • Load Cells and Various Force Measurement Devices
  • Rotary and Reaction Torque Transducers
  • Weight Measurement Equipment
  • Calibration Grade Devices
  • Test Stands and Load Frames
  • Analog and Digital Instrumentation
  • Data Acquisition Systems

Quality, accuracy and durability are key considerations for the type of measurement device selected for different tests, whether it is for brake caliper testing or in airbag connector tests.

General Automotive Lab Test Types

  • Component and Sub-Component Level Testing
  • Suspension Testing, including component level, such as shocks, springs and subframes and multi-post shaker rigs
  • Durability Testing, such as seats, window frames, material
  • Safety Testing such as crush, seat belt testing, and airbag mounts
  • Crash Walls

For general automotive testing solutions, key considerations for auto testing lab requirements are high cycle count capabilities and load cell integration in actuation systems. Our products are used for off-axis and impact loading and measuring test article failure net results. The equipment can be exposed to many environmental challenges so load cell ruggedization is very important to lab professionals.

Automotive Driveline Test Types

  • Engine and Motor Performance and Durability Tests
  • Engine and Motor Efficiency Testing
  • Power Analyzation (Electric)
  • Driveline Durability and Efficiency
  • Component Testing
  • Accessory Drive Testing

For automotive driveline testing, considerations on equipment include peak torque ratings, rotating torque capabilities. Easy transducer integration with couplings matters for these tests. Additional factors for equipment include signal requirements, environmental conditions, noise levels, both electrical and mechanical and vibration. The devices used in testing article failure are very important for evaluating net results.

Test labs also prefer precision sensors for critical tests, which include our 1200 Series LowProfile™ Load Cells with their special moment compensated design. Popular ruggedized Interface products used in automotive testing include our 2400 series and 3200 series Stainless Steel LowProfile™ Load Cells and our WMC Miniature Load Cells

With a wide range of automotive vehicle load cell sensors, force and torque measurement capabilities and features such as moment compensation, temperature compensation, and mechanical overload protection, Interface can help you design a solution perfect for your automotive application. We also offer custom one-off sensors and special application-specific designs.

To learn more about testing lab solutions, be sure to tune into our Interface Testing Lab Essentials Webinar.

Accelerating Automotive Excellence with Interface Testing Lab Solutions Case Study

Interface Accelerates Accuracy in Test and Measurement

Since Interface was founded in 1968, we have developed millions of load cells and torque transducers for engineers and designers that require the highest precision force sensors for accurate and reliable data collection in test and measurement (T&M). Our customers represent a wide swath of industries, products, equipment types, tools, and electronics that depend on us for proving accuracy, consistency, and reliability in performance.

The complexity of user applications and testing environments is rapidly expanding as a result of shorter product lifecycles and demands for smaller, lighter, faster-performing innovations. This has created a proliferation of new test and measurement use cases for sensors in almost every sector including technology, energy, and biomedical, as well as industrial, additive manufacturing and automotive verticals.  We are seeing more and more sensor products utilize Bluetooth technology, digital outputs, and direct OEM installations into the product without connectors.

Our products serve a wide variety of these types of test and measurement requirements used for structural and material testing, static and fatigue testing, torsion effects, tension tests and mass and kinetic energy. When experienced users see the Interface brand, they know they can expect the highest-quality results possible from the force measurement industry leaders.

The load cell products we provide T&M customers range from our  Ultra Low Capacity Series, which measures forces in mere grams, to our industry-leading LowProfile™ Load Cells with capacities up to 2 million lbf. For torque testing, Interface supplies a wide variety of torque transducers with ranges as low as 0.005 Nm and as high as 340K Nm. We customers depend on us for various multi-axis sensors, instrumentation products, accessories, tension links, load pins, and shackles. For complex challenges and unique applications, our customers work with our application engineers to create modified and customized solutions.

Test and Measurement Applications

To give you a sense as to the range of test and measurement use cases, here is a small sample of applications that utilize our standard and custom force measurement solutions:

  • Fatigue testing
  • Material testing
  • Suspension testing
  • Shear testing
  • Force testing
  • Tensile testing
  • Pressure testing
  • Friction testing
  • Durability testing
  • Tension testing
  • Device testing
  • Hardware load and fatigue testing
  • Force verification
  • Calibration

Included below are two examples of how our products were used to help our customer’s test and measure “real life” applications.

Harness Durability Testing

A customer came to us needing to test the load and durability factors of harnesses used by workers to carry heavy loads or those used in sports equipment. We developed a drop test apparatus using an Interface Model 1200 Load Cell. The apparatus dropped a humanoid dummy outfitted with the harness from various heights to measure the force generated during sudden stops at maximum cable extension. These tests helped our customer develop harness limits which inform users on unsafe loads.

Figure one: Interface drop test apparatus using the Model 1200 load cell

Prosthetic Load and Fatigue Testing

Medical hardware engineers are among the largest users of T&M equipment because of the stringent regulations in the industry. Interface developed a new solution to test heavy loads on prosthetic limbs to certify them for falls, accidents and athletic movement. These stress tests determine the expected lifespan of prosthetic components under normal usage.  Our solution involves a static load test apparatus with an S-type load cell attached to a hydraulic actuator which applies and measures cyclic loads. These tests help our customers determine whether prosthetic materials and designs will withstand the rigors of daily use and occasional high-load situations.

Figure two: Load test apparatus with an S-type load cell attached to a hydraulic actuator  

What we find most exciting about the T&M industry is continuous innovation, perhaps it is the “engineer” in us.  We like to solve, create, build, imagine and challenge ourselves. There are a wide variety of new applications we see every year, and yet many applications are unique.

Those that are in the test and measurement field help to guarantee product safety, reliability and longevity. Therefore, the tools they use are critical to the confirmation of their work. That’s why Interface builds products that reliably and consistently gather high-quality, accurate data for any application. For more information on our T&M offerings, or to discover more T&M product applications, please visit www.interfaceforce.com/solutions/test-measurement/.