Climatic Chamber with Chassis Dynamometer Testing Simulator Car Model Development and Validation Process

Abstract

Military and commercial vehicles are subjected to many tests, in the R & D stage before serial production. During this test process, critical parts have to be improved according to the evaluation of vehicle's performance. Measurement of several parameters and simulation of real life conditions are essential for correct interpretation of the test results. There are specially developed simulators to provide the required test conditions. These systems are simulating real life conditions (temperature, humidity, load, force, etc.) and provide a suitable environment for test process. Simulators accelerate the testing process and saving considerable amount of time. Climatic chamber with integrated chassis dynamometer is used to accelerate the process of design verification. Climatic chamber can provide different environmental conditions and by this way test processes can be performed independent from the ambient conditions.Moreover the chassis dynamometer provides testing the vehicle’s power pack and chassis components instead of testing the vehicle in road conditions . In this article, a testing laboratory, which was built by integrating the climatic chamber and chassis dynamometer, has been focused on. Firstly the operating principles of the climatic chamber and the chassis dynamometer has been explained and then the simulators’ characteristics are indicated. Secondly the main parameters for the simulation of the resistance acting on the vehicle during road tests have been calculated with the coast-down test on the dynamometer. Finally the same test was performed both on the road and on the simulator for comparing the test results.