Novares has opened a test centre in Lens, France, housing a new vibration shaker system for measuring premature wear and tear on vehicle parts.
As Novares aims to measure vibration acting on plastic parts, as well as their noise emissions under increased loads, the company required a system which could withstand relatively high levels of vibration for long periods and could also measure effects at different temperatures.Novares contacted test and measurement expert, Hottinger Brüel & Kjær (HBK), with HBK recommending its V8900 shaker to carry out a range of current and future tests.The supplier notes plastics behave differently depending on temperatures, so most vibration tests are performed in a climatic chamber. The V8900 system and its slip table are suitable for this requirement, as they adapt to different climatic chamber models available on the market.
Vibration tests, combined with climatic tests, are one of the most representative of the real environment and the most effective in terms of immediate results used to evaluate products.“When it comes to the automotive industry’s criteria for material that will be used in the near future, plastic remains the reference material due to its potential for mass gain; an important factor in view of the increased weight of new engines, especially hybrid and electric motors and flexibility,” said Novares Lens Laboratory manager, Bertrand Dufour.
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“The final products must be recyclable, which is already a challenge, as they, today, contain recycled material, whose properties are ultimately too variable and the recycling channels too weak. Plastics must be able to withstand the increasingly delicate moulding requirements and under the bonnet temperatures of 3-cylinder engines.
“HBK was able to take all this criteria on board and guide us towards the best possible solution, with a shaker capable of carrying out a very wide range of our current and future tests: a future leaning towards the evolution of electric and hydrogen engines.”
