At AUTOMOTIVE TESTING EXPO (ATE) in Stuttgart, Germany, in mid-June, several hundred visitors were highly interested in receiving information about IMV’s new eco-friendly shakers. “We are extremely glad about the keen interest in our products”, Martin Engelke, Marketing and Sales Manager for Germany, Austria and Switzerland, said at the end of the three-day show. Among the exhibits IMV presented their latest development: a water-cooled 350 kN shaker. The K350 features a displacement of 76.2 mm peak-to-peak and a shock velocity of 3.5 m/s tests vibrations in slow motion.

Stroboscope camera coupled with the shaker

Together with Shoji Kakihara, IMV General Manager of Global Sales, and John Goodfellow, Director IMV Europe, the IMV experts untiringly answered the questions of the throngs of visitors at the exhibition stall. Experts were impressed by the results achieved with a stroboscope camera coupled with the shaker. “High-speed vibrations of test objects and components can be followed in slow motion with a video stroboscope”, Martin Engelke explained. “In this way we can visualise motions otherwise not visible to the human eye. With the video stroboscope from Limess Messtechnik Software GmbH, we can visualise effects that otherwise are very difficult to show in conventional environments. This helps understand the problems involved”, Engelke adds. The camera is no also available from IMV.

Resonance analyses with a xylophone

Music was also a topic addressed at ATE. Using a small xylophone and mallets of different materials such as aluminium, magnesium, steel or carbon, IMV demonstrated the different sounds and vibrations, resp. of materials. “The fixture on which the specimen is mounted must not vibrate”, Engelke stresses. “So we choose the materials to suit the particular application according to the test conditions and the available budget.”

Tests with force vector up to 74 kN

Visitors to the ATE could also convince themselves of the advantages of an A30 shaker used together with a sliding table type RT600 and an expander. This modern air-cooled vibration test system is not only an energy saver, operates more efficiently and emits less noise, it also radiates considerably less heat. Using air-cooled shakers from IMV, customers can carry out tests with a force vector of up to 74 kN. In addition, IMV had two type m030 systems on display which operate as coupled dual system. The system vibrated a small plate at different frequencies. The modes were visualised by sand spread on the plate.

This was already the sixth time IMV presented modern vibration test systems at the world’s leading trade fair for automotive test, validation, simulation and quality engineering. Next year, Automotive Testing Expo will again take place in Stuttgart, from June 5-7, 2018.