Abstract
Airbus Defence and Space, a global aerospace and defense company, sought to improve the speed, efficiency, and reliability of environmental qualification testing for spacecraft and aerospace systems. Its legacy data acquisition system required lengthy setup, slow data processing, and limited flexibility, creating bottlenecks in vibration and acoustic testing. By implementing Siemens’ Simcenter Testlab® software and Simcenter SCADAS® hardware, integrated with the DynaWorks platform, Airbus automated test preparation, accelerated data acquisition, reduced setup time, improved measurement accuracy, and enabled significantly faster environmental testing campaigns while enhancing collaboration between testing and analysis teams.
Key Takeaways:
- Accelerated environmental testing: Simcenter reduced setup and post-processing times, enabling complete vibration and acoustic test campaigns within a single work week.
- Automated test preparation: Integration with DynaWorks automated sensor configuration, amplifier programming, and test setup, minimizing manual effort and improving traceability.
- Faster data acquisition: Simcenter SCADAS delivered measurement data to analysis teams up to 10 times faster than the previous testing system.
- Improved testing efficiency: Programming amplifiers and retrieving test data that previously required several minutes now completed within seconds.
- Enhanced measurement accuracy: Universal data acquisition hardware supported multiple sensor types while reducing setup errors and improving testing quality.
- Advanced vibration testing: Expanded dynamic measurement range enabled low-level vibration testing and improved qualification of sensitive aerospace components.
- High-capacity scalable platform: The 512-channel Simcenter SCADAS system provided a scalable infrastructure for large-scale environmental qualification testing.
- Customized hardware support: Siemens developed specialized VCF4 acquisition cards to meet Airbus’ specific testing requirements, strengthening long-term collaboration.
- Improved engineering productivity: Faster testing workflows, real-time monitoring, and rapid data availability reduced project delays and increased confidence in environmental test results.
