Exhaust pipe

The engi­neers at Cumm­ins design and test their engi­nes to with­stand real-world con­di­ti­ons, ran­ging from mili­ta­ry deploy­ments to hea­vy-duty indus­tri­al sites. Cumm­ins engi­neers want to know exact­ly how their parts are deforming under the com­bi­na­ti­on of ther­mal and mecha­ni­cal loads. This means they’ve got to per­form their tests with the engi­nes run­ning – and hot.

Becau­se of the com­plex strain fields pro­du­ced under the­se con­di­ti­ons, con­ven­tio­nal gau­ges can­not satis­fy Cumm­ins’ requi­re­ments. FEA simu­la­ti­ons are also limi­t­ed, due to the uncer­tain boun­da­ry con­di­ti­ons. With the Vic-3D sys­tem, Cumm­ins engi­neers are able to obtain detail­ed three-dimen­sio­nal strain mea­su­re­ments. The­se mea­su­re­ments are made under real loa­ding con­di­ti­ons while the engi­ne is run­ning. In addi­ti­on, the Vic-3D sys­tem is easy to set up and can mea­su­re both small parts and lar­ge assemblies.

 

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Paul Gloeck­ner, seni­or rese­arch engi­neer at Cumm­ins, explains the useful­ness of the Vic-3D sys­tem as fol­lows: “This tool allows us to make mea­su­re­ments that were pre­vious­ly not pos­si­ble. It has also allo­wed us to con­sider­a­b­ly redu­ce the time requi­red for the­se tests.”