Motivation

In product development, the function and durability of a product is secured by certification, for which realistic tests are necessary. The difficulty lies in the realistic modeling of the interactions between the test object and the bordering systems.  
In current test procedures in aviation, the environmental influences of vibration, pressure, temperature and humidity, which are superimposed in reality, are predominantly only verified individually. A superposition of temperature changes and vibrations only exists as development-accompanying HALT (highly accelerated lifetime) tests. However, the test chambers specially built for this purpose generate less realistic conditions, and are designed to cause damage to the test specimen as quickly as possible, which can then be used to derive measures for product improvement. A standard-compliant, reproducible test for certification cannot be carried out with these test facilities.

Objective

The objective of the CERTEV project is the development of new, cost-efficient test environments with test rigs and test methods adapted to the requirements of aviation test situations. The development of test environments with combined environmental influences represents a significant improvement of the current separated tests. By superimposing several environmental influences, a reduction in test times and costs as well as an increase in reliability under more realistic conditions is achieved at the same time.

In addition to the test environments, test methods for superimposed testing will be developed to reduce the duration of physical tests and thus also reduce development times. Furthermore, a virtual test environment will be evolved to simulate the influences of temperature, humidity, vibration and pressure.

Research Method

After the analysis phase of current limits and potentials of existing test rigs, use case scenarios are synthesized together with the project partners, taking into account current standards and regulations. On this basis, new test environments will be designed and conceptualized in the form of a short- and a longterm realization. Virtual models of the test environment are developed, which can represent the simultaneous influences of, for example, temperature, humidity, vibration and pressure. In addition to the expansion of the knowledge base in this subject area, indications for the technical implementation and initial estimates of load limits are to be derived. This is accompanied by the development of new test methods for superimposed testing with the aim of reducing the duration of physical tests and thus also shortening development times.

After joint test bench development with the partners and production by the partner RMS, the final goal is to validate the results of the previously developed virtual models and test methods using the realized test environments. For this purpose, physical tests are carried out on several levels of the product component test pyramid, which is based on the Building Block Approach and further developed at PKT, with suitable levels of detail.

Principal Investigator (PKT): Prof. Dr.-Ing. Dieter Krause

Co-Investigator: Philipp Hüttich, M.Sc.

Funding and Partners

The project is funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK).

Funding code: 20Q1956C

The project will run from 2021 to 2025.

Project partners are Fa. RMS Regelungs- und Messtechnik Dipl. Ing. Schaefer GmbH & Co. KG and Fa. Treo – Labor für Umweltsimulation GmbH.