A380 Full Scale Fatigue Tests A380 Full Scale Fatigue Tests | HBM

Airbus A380 large-scale test using HBM measurement technology

IABG (Industrieanlagen Betriebsgesellschaft mbH) in Ottobrunn/Dresden trusts in measurement technology from HBM for the large-scale fatigue strength tests on a fully assembled Airbus A380 (scheduled at IMA Materialforschung und Anwendungstechnik GmbH in Dresden).

Amplifier systems and measurement software from HBM will be used to solve the measurement tasks encountered during the largest ever project in the history of civil aviation industry.

IABG’s decision to favor HBM was based on the innovative technology, the user-friendly software and the excellent price/performance ratio. A major advantage is the use of the CANHEAD distributed measurement electronics which gives huge savings in the amount of measurement cable required to connect the approximately 7,000 strain gages.

The CANHEAD modules are positioned as close as possible to the measuring points. In a housing no larger than a pocketbook, they provide the complete signal conditioning, analog-to-digital conversion for up to 10 strain gage quarter bridges and the bus link. A CANbus is used to transmit the digital signals at 24 bit resolution. A maximum of 12 CANHEAD modules is connected to one CANbus line. Measured data can be transmitted at a sampling rate of 25 values/s per channel. Up to 4 such CANbus lines can be integrated in one 19“ module which in turn is connected to the data acquisition PC together with other modules via an Ethernet link.

An important feature of this system is the fully synchronous data acquisition in all measurement channels, independent of the number of active channels. This means that all CANHEAD modules in one CANbus line and all communication modules in one MGCplus module are synchronized in respect to hardware. In addition, all modules are synchronized among each other.

The catman® Enterprise software package from HBM is used for parameterizing the whole system and for data acquisition. It provides easy and comfortable handling, especially of systems with high channel counts and, in addition, ensures high data integrity for data acquisition and storage.

Over the past years, measuring systems based on hardware and software technology from HBM, have become a standard for static and fatigue tests, especially in the aerospace industry.