MAN advances in Munich
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MAN has recently commissioned an innovative engine and driveline test bed at its Munich plant.
The test equipment was supplied by Brown Boveri of Switzerland and simulates a vehicle's mass, from 3.5 tonnes to 44 tonnes, by means of a direct current electric motor.
In the two months since the test bed was installed MAN's engineers have been checking its results against figures obtained from on-road testing of complete vehicles and they are now well satisfied with the "very close correlation" they have found.
The test bed can accept two drivelines, from engine to prop shaft, simultaneously and it can be used as a conventional "engine only" dynamometer.
Computer
The analogue computer which controls the test bed can be run off a tape to simulate a particular route or it may be programmed to run the engine and driveline through any given cycle, such as from idle to full load, full throttle, and with three stops per kilometre to simulate psv operation, for example.
Various wind and rolling resistances can be simulated at the flick of a switch, as can the vehicle mass by means of a potentiometer.
MAN's engineers are currently using the Brown Boveri equipment to compare various gearboxes and they say they are saving weeks of on-road testing time.