Few decades ago, automotive industry was really depending on the Full-Scale Field Testing for ensuring the quality of their product. The major challenge that the industry had with Field Testing was the very long duration of testing needed. The whole process of Field Testing may take several months.
Another even worst challenge might appear when there is failure detected during the Field Testing. If it is concluded as design defect, it will take all the process back to Detail Design. After that, new prototype will be re-produced, and the Field Testing for the new prototype will be started from zero.
In order to minimize the repetitive failure during Field Testing, some of automotive manufacturers developed Laboratory Scale Component Testing. This means that before going for Field Testing, some of critical components must undergo individual testing. This individual lab scale testing normally is done by testing machine which can be operated continuously 24 hours per day. Therefore, when failure happens during this testing, the “Design-Prototyping-Testing” iteration can be performed in much shorter period.
But the implementation of Laboratory Scale Component Testing in product development process is also facing some challenges. One of biggest challenge is how to ensure that the Component Testing is really representing the actual Field Testing environment. In other words, the “fatigue damage” produced by Component Testing must be similar with the one actually produced during Field Testing.
Few decades ago, it was not easy to ensure this, but nowadays, new testing procedures with new software algorithm and features have been developed in order to increase the accuracy of Component Testing.
ETS SHAKER SERIES with IPA Amplifier technology are designed to meet the requirement of various vibration test and shock test standards used by automotive industry. The Vibration Controller software has also been developed to ensure the testing accuracy.
