Deformation Measurement

Aerospace Application Example

aerospace_1_notitle-300x247Air­bus has built a repu­ta­ti­on for inno­va­ti­ve air­craft, reco­gni­zed around  the world for their safe­ty and effi­ci­en­cy. All of the­se attri­bu­tes are dri­ven by a top-notch test­ing pro­gram, who­se inno­va­ti­ve prac­ti­ce are evi­den­ced by their use of the Vic-3D mea­su­re­ment system.

One of the goals of the Air­bus test­ing pro­gram is to cha­rac­te­ri­ze the struc­tu­ral dama­ge cau­sed by col­li­si­ons bet­ween the air­craft and small pro­jec­ti­les such as birds and other ground based debris, and to ensu­re that the struc­tu­ral inte­gri­ty of the air­craft is maintained.

This type of event can be repro­du­ced by firing a varie­ty of dif­fe­rent types of pro­jec­ti­le at a pie­ce of air­craft struc­tu­re at a high velo­ci­ty. The results obtai­ned can be used to compa­re with com­pu­ter models of the struc­tu­re under impact loads, lea­ding to more high­ly opti­mi­zed and safer designs.

 

aerospace_2_notitle-300x224Dr. Richard Bur­gue­te, expe­ri­men­tal mecha­nics spe­cia­list at Air­bus UK sin­ce 1997, explains the bene­fits of this approach as fol­lows: “The VIC-3D sys­tem allows us to be sure we have cap­tu­red all of the rele­vant data, some of which might have other­wi­se been unobtainable.”