Aerospace vibration testing for all conditions

摘要

Element Materials Technology's Warwick laboratory is one of the few UK test centres to house a high-displacement LDS V8 electrodynamic test system, enabling it to reproduce the extreme vibration conditions of an aircraft facing a fan blade 'out event'. Classed as a serious safety threat, a fan blade out event occurs when a foreign object, such as a bird, is caught by an aircraft's engine, causing one of the rotor blades to detach. The damage caused is so critical to the engine that it stops producing power, although the engine will continue to rotate due to the incoming airflow, an effect which is known as 'windmilling'. This places high levels of stress on the aircraft's flight systems and the ability of the systems to withstand these conditions must be validated through rigorous tests.