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.”