SwRI Opens Structural Test Facility for Aerospace Sector
December 19, 2006 // Published as a news service by IHS
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The Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) opened an 11,000-square-foot structural test facility designed for large article items.
"This new facility more than doubles our current large article test capability," said Dr. Ken Griffin, manager of the Aerospace Structures Section in the SwRI Structural Engineering Department.
"It opens the way for us to provide test services to the aerospace community for much larger aircraft and will allow us, in some cases, to test two aircraft simultaneously."
The facility features:
- 7,000 square feet of unobstructed test space, fully swept by a 30-ton bridge crane with 30-foot height clearance.
- Oversized doors to enable access to transport trucks to facilitate loading and unloading of large test items.
- 16 hard point locations that can accommodate 30,000-pound tie-down loads.
"The floor ties facilitate restraining some large articles such as oil field equipment, earth-moving vehicle frames and rail cars, among others, without a self-reacting test frame," Griffin said.
The entire facility can be climate controlled to accommodate installation of special instrumentation. The facility also houses offices, experiment build-up shops and storage areas.
The facility also houses an array of test equipment, including:
- A 3,000-psi hydraulic system for structural loading, rated at 80 gallons per minute.
- An air pressurization system, rated at 150 psi, capable of delivering 375 cubic feet per minute of high-pressure air.
Source: Southwest Research Institute (SwRI).