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WOW T ECHNOLOGY Automatisation & Robotique Prototypes & Production engineering your ideas Test & Mesure Test bench for actuators This project is part of a European Space Agency program, intended to develop a spacecraft able to return autonomously from low orbit. This one is known as IXV for Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle, and should be launched into a suborbital trajectory by Vega, the latest European launcher. The supply of the flaps control actuators of this small shuttle was entrusted to the SABCA, thanks to the excellent Test bench for actuators reputation that this Belgian company has acquired in this area. The test bench movements of the flaps (extensions and for actuators ordered to WOW Techretractions of actuators). The optimal solunology was designed to test perfortion was to join a crank representing a flap mances of these highly critical devices to an electrical SEW servo-motor. for atmospheric re-entry flight control. Aerospace constraints The test bench is used to reproduce mechanical and thermal stress the actuators will face. Our engineers have faced several challenges in the design of this equipment, which we detail below. The most important of them concerns torque regulation (in the order of 2500 Nm) for the loading of actuators. The torque must be as constant as possible, taking into account an important hysteresis occurring during alternate Actuator and its lever www.wowtechnology.com 1 WOW T ECHNOLOGY Automatisation & Robotique Prototypes & Production engineering your ideas Test & Mesure Another challenge was to maintain a constant torque during the test of the actuator bandwidth that results in a very quick change of the applied stress. The servo-motor being not dynamic enough for this kind of tests, it can be disconnected and replaced by a spring box which provides a more appropriate response. Actuators are subjected to temperatures of up to 115 °C, due to the heating of the IXV by air friction during the re-entry. These thermal stresses are applied to the actuators using a climatic enclosure, so that the response to mechanical stress is measured in the most exact environmental conditions. In addition, WOW designers demonstrated inventiveness to provide SABCA with the adjustment opportunities of some geometrical parameters. Results acquisition torque regulation of the test bench), a force sensor to measure the axial stress, and a linear displacement sensor. The raw data obtained are then recovered by SABCA for analysis and control via a connection on the electrical cabinet. Solutions transferable to all industrial fields This project demonstrates how the field of tailor-made equipment designed by WOW Technology is huge. Our know-how is in fact beyond automation of production steps and integration of robots, for which we are usually known, as attested by our numerous achievements of test and measurement equipments, both in applications for R & D (as it was the case for SABCA), and for the quality control (sampling or in line). You will find some other examples by visiting the Test and Measurement section on our website. Several sensors are integrated into the test bench: a torque sensor (the data collected by this one was also necessary to the Copyright ESA/J.Huart IXV during atmospheric re-entry www.wowtechnology.com 2