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Civil & Defence Aircraft

Airplane flying in the sky above the clouds

Aircraft manufacturers carry out rigorous and comprehensive tests to ensure maximum safety for both civil and combat aircraft. Design engineers are facing a demand for more efficient or electric engines to meet noise and pollution specifications, while safeguarding high performance and reliability even under extreme conditions. But new propulsion systems require additional and comprehensive testing while time to market is short.

Any aircraft – and even more so the modern combat aircraft – is dynamically unstable to benefit its manoeuverability. This poses structural challenges that are exacerbated by the use of new materials. Expensive, large-scale tests on components, systems and the entire aircraft are needed to validate simulation models and physical prototypes and achieve airworthiness certification.

 

Advanced technology is pivotal to performing all these complex and expensive tests within a short time window. HBK is keenly aware of these challenges. Our integrated solutions reliably cope with aviation testing requirements and provide accurate, reliable results to support a “first-time-right” approach.

Key Areas of Application

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Passenger aircraft on maintenance of engine and fuselage repair in airport hangar

Electrification is a megatrend in all ground and airborne vehicles and has found its way into the aerospace industry. Electric aircraft propulsion systems have their unique design and measurement challenges as they push the limits of technology by going to higher voltages and frequencies. These systems are highly complex, requiring a high number of measurements and a large variety of signals to be acquired for initial validation and certification, efficiency and control testing.

 

We at HBK support our customers with initial research and validation of novel materials, components, and entire systems. The HBK all-in-one power testing solution integrates and synchronizes all measurements to ensure fast, accurate, and reliable testing. 

Battery testing

To ensure maximum performance and safety, HBK offers battery testing solutions for mechanical vibration, electrical and durability testing. As durability testing is often repetitive, we make sure test results are accurate and consistent throughout.

Close-up of aircraft maintenance technician screwing part into the wing of an airplane at the hangar

Whether it’s determining material properties of components or the life expectancy of the entire aircraft by full-scale fatigue testing; whether it’s CAE-based simulation or physical ground vibration testing: Measuring dynamic and static aircraft behaviour under typical load conditions up to extreme events over thousands of test cycles is expensive and time-consuming. Only dedicated testing solutions and highly reliable equipment can manage these complex tasks and help engineers to use testing time and resources efficiently. 

Impedance tube testing

These tests help determine the acoustic characteristics of materials and verify their compliance with regulations early in the development process. The HBK testing solution also enables you to predict the acoustical impact of assembled components. 

Man working in the design and development of an aircraft with staircases placed next to the wing and the plane's door

To achieve the certificate of airworthyness, any newly developed aircraft must be thoroughly tested. Zero failure of the whole flight control system and its components is a must. Airframe structures will undergo comprehensive tests to ensure top performance throughout their operational life. Ever more stringent noise regulations put pressure on manufacturers to design noise-driven airframe layouts with the smallest possible noise footprint. HBK’s dedicated solutions for flight system and airframe testing ensure compliance with international test standards and are approved for use in aircraft noise certification.

Detail of the propulsion system of a turbine engine from an airplane

Propulsion systems such as jet engines are the main source of the overall aircraft noise footprint. Identifying sound sources and mitigating their impact is key in designing low-noise propulsion systems. The effect of vibration and other physical forces on the engine’s structural integrity need to be thoroughly explored. Typically, there is only a short time window to accomplish all these tests. HBK supports “right-first-time” engineering and supplies ultra-reliable, high-quality solutions for noise, vibration, and structural dynamics testing on propulsion systems.

Complete propulsion system testing

Reliability is essential as there are obvious catastrophic effects of failures during service. Extensive vibroacoustic tests are required to evaluate performance under aerodynamic loading.

Structural dynamics and modal testing

Define the dynamic parameters of an aircraft propulsion system. Our comprehensive set of modal analysis and validation tools effectively supports you in validating your simulation models to update flutter boundary predictions before the first test flight.

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