CLIMATIC & STRESS TESTING: ROUND-UP


HIGH-SPEED BEARINGS TESTED TO THEIR LIMIT


aeronautical bearings. The European High-Speed Aeronautical Bearings Test Centre, located at the SKF Aeroengine site in Valenciennes, France, will enable full- scale, high-speed bearing testing under representative operating and environmental conditions. The development timetable will be aligned with the European Clean Sky 2 programme, for which SKF has been selected for several projects. Due to their critical role in aircraft and


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helicopter engines and transmissions, development-cycle times for engine shaft bearings, accessory drives and transmission gearboxes remain significant. The test centre will be developed to


continuously improve the representativeness, reliability and repeatability required by major aeronautical manufacturers. Beyond bearing-related technologies, the test centre will also make it possible to speed up the maturity ramp-up for advanced technologies, such as those linked to sensors and signal processing. Rutger Barrdahl, head of aerospace at


SKF says: “Our customers are looking for weight-savings, increased service life and better lifetime predictability to improve the operational, economic and environmental performance of their aircraft. In this sense, our new test centre is a catalyser and accelerator for innovation in the area of high-speed aeronautical bearings.”


KF is increasing its capacity to innovate by opening a new European test centre dedicated to high-speed


KEEP THE WIND BLOWING


Farnborough,Hampshire. The £25million contract has been awarded under an existing 40-year agreement that began in 2004 and is reviewed every five years. The latest extension will see Boeing continue to use the facility for its commercial aircraft testing until at least 2024. The wind tunnel’s large size and ability


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to run at a pressure of up to three atmospheres provide high-quality data that can accurately predict an aircraft’s performance at full scale. This helps improve efficiency during landing and take-off, which is of critical importance for bothmilitary and civil aircraft. In 2016, the wind tunnel benefitted from


£2min government and industry funding for a project to apply electricmotor technology to the scalemodels tested in the facility, to represent the effect of real engines. The upgrade improves manufacturers’ understanding of the airflow around the engines, helping them to further refine their designs. John Anderson,managing director of


Air & Space at QinetiQ, said: “The wind tunnel, whichmarks its 40th anniversary this year, has played a crucial role in the development ofmodern advanced aircraft, such as Boeing’s 787 and 777X. “This continuation of our partnership


with Boeing reaffirms the wind tunnel’s position as a vital national asset, enabling this important work to be carried out right here in the UK. It also shows that QinetiQ is delivering its strategy to ensure the UK has the test and evaluation facilities and skills needed tomaintain its competitive advantage.”


oeing has renewed its commitment to evaluating its aircraft designs in QinetiQ’s 5mwind tunnel in


WIRELESS RIG TESTS DRONE CONTROLS


drones through their paces has been developed by an independent electronics design company on theWelsh borders. The rig was developed especially for this


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project and will be dismantled after use. However, the precision torque sensor which performs the critical task of collecting data fromthe rig for analysis will almost certainly be reused on subsequent jobs. The sensor is a TorqSense fromSensor


Technology of Banbury and its innovative wireless operationmakes it quick and easy to install, yet it is capable of generating vast amounts of accurate data. MALE drones or UAVs (unmanned


aerial vehicles) typically fly at 10,000ft to 30,000ft for 24hrs to 48hrs at a time. They


34 /// Environmental Engineering /// December 2017


test rig for putting the next generation of controls formedium altitude long endurance (MALE)


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