Test Equipment : CASE STUDIES

Aircraft Refuel Surge Test Rig

A full-scale model of an aircraft fuelling system. MIRA designed, built and installed the ATEX-compliant measurement & control system. This includes transducers, signal conditioning, over 15 km of installation cabling, 112 channels of data logging/transient acquisition, data analysis, automated process control, avionics software integration, safety shutdown system and a graphical user interface.

Fuel System Test Facility

This large and impressive facility incorporates a test area of over 2500 square metres, enabling the fullscale testing of aircraft fuel systems. MIRA designed, built and installed the measurement & control system. This is an ATEX-compliant, flexible system providing automated or manual control of aircraft fuel valves and pumps, safety-related control and 240 channels of data acquisition; each capable of 20 kHz sample rate.

Reverse Impact Simulation Test Facility (Hyge)

A pneumatic gun accelerates a test vehicle mounted on a sled in the reverse direction, thus simulating the deceleration encountered in a vehicle crash. MIRA designed, built and installed a fully automated, configurable facility control system. Features include safety interlocking, sequencing of high-speed photography, lighting, data acquisition, scientific services and gun trigger plus closed-loop control of gun hydraulic and pneumatic systems.

Data Aquisition and Control System for Pendulum Rig

An impactor mounted on a pendulum arm is swung in to vehicle interior components and structures to evaluate their energy absorption characteristics. The rig control system provides safety interlocking and automated sequential triggering of lights, cameras, data acquisition and pendulum release. An integral data acquisition system measures impact load, acceleration and velocity.

Internal MIRA projects

Head Impact Rig

This rig is used to determine head injuries sustained whilst impacting interior trim components. The rig comprises a pneumatically-powered, free flight head-form launcher, head form with integral tri-axial accelerometer, control system, data acquisition to measure acceleration and analysis software to determine head injury criteria.

Seat Belt Anchorage Rig

Twelve hydraulic rams mounted on a steel framework apply up to 30 tonnes of load in 100mS to vehicle seat belts, simulating the loads encountered during an impact. Displacement and load data are collected to determine the integrity of the seat belt anchorages. The rig includes closed-loop electrohydraulic load control, 32 channels of data acquisition, automated process control and safety systems.

Climatic Wind Tunnel

This facility enables whole vehicle testing in all environmental conditions from Death Valley to the Arctic Circle, providing wind speeds up to 180 Km/hr, temperatures of -30oC to + 50oC, humidity from 5% to 95%, rolling road to load the vehicle’s power plant and solar simulation. The integrated data acquisition and control system is capable of logging 124 channels of pressure, temperature, voltage and frequency. Test process control is fully configurable, automated, and provides closed-loop control of all climatic conditions.