A new product suitable to the bus market has been released by international supplier HBM
The SomatXR data acquisition system from global test and measurement group HBM has been designed with harsh environments firmly in mind.
The SomatXR enables technicians to keep tabs on the material stress and loading on critical components, and has been created for drive and durability testing of a wide range of vehicles – including buses.
It has been specially developed for measuring under severe operating conditions out in the field.
The product was tested recently during the world-record setting Touareg Cape-to-Cape tour which saw the vehicle travel 19,000km across Europe to Africa in some of the harshest conditions in the world.
“This is a mobile product that’s created for drive and durability testing of construction, agricultural and mining machines, plus locomotives and heavy off road vehicles,” says HBM Product Manager Finn Lange.
“The Cape-to-Cape tour was a perfect test of the SomatXR’s capacilities. Indeed, the SomatXR could play fully to its strengths in the Cape-to-Cape 2.0 car because it is ultra-rugged.”
Somat XR‘s four amplifiers – MX840B-R, MX1615B-R, MX1601B-R and MX1609KB-R – are hermetically sealed, which means they are water tight and protected from humidity, dust, shock and vibration.
“No other data acquisition system in this class is built to survive under these conditions. And once measurement data is recorded, it‘s accessible from any point on earth via web interface,” says Lange.
During the Cape-to-Cape 2.0 tour, the SomatXR data recorder measured quantities such as temperature and accelleration, and especially data from different HBM strain gauges installed at various points on the axle and wheels.
This measurement setup gave the team’s technicians full access to information about material stress and loading on critical components.