The outlook for the sector of heavy mobile machinery, mining, ground-moving and agriculture indicates continued growth and transformation. Alongside this growth, heavy equipment manufacturers face increasing engineering challenges related to electrification, reliability, emission and quality.
In this context, understanding the structural dynamics and acoustic behaviour of machines has become a critical element of modern product development. Accurate vibration and structural testing on sub-systems and support structures allows engineering teams to validate designs and identify potential failure mechanisms early on. Moreover, it ensures machines delivering the durability, safety and performance which are needed in demanding real-world applications.
Specialized shakers tailored to mining, ground moving and agriculture
Finding an optimal solution with respect to vibration and noise issues on large machines is far from evident- especially where testing is needed since human presence near the critical components in operation is mostly prohibited, whereas large machine operation solely for the purpose of testing is often too expensive.
Using artificial excitation, a significant part of the testing can be shifted away from the operational field and allows for a direct link to CAE models. Experimental modal analysis, transfer path analysis, airborne source quantification, mobility base substructuring, can all provide insight into the sensitivity of the structures, potential of the supports and bearing locations, and isolation of the partitions or encapsulations. Combined with limited operational testing, the dynamic and vibrational loads can be identified, providing validated loads to drive FE models or correlation data for multi-body models.
Qsources delivers excitation devices which allow for reliable measurements to obtain critical information, feasible wherever the excitation needs to be applied (working environments included). The point source behaviour and integrated volume acceleration sensing enable comparison with, or direct inclusion into CAE models of the sound field. The extremely compact self-suspending and self-aligning shakers can be used on any inclination and location, and can be applied using structural adhesives for high efficiency in the testing. The main advantage of the high force level integrated Qsources shakers is that there are no external supports needed, nor special fixtures, making it feasible to measure on among others links, beams, scrapers, crunchers, sub-assemblies and on fully assembled machinery.