Helicopter Hub / Blade Testing

Helicopter hub and blade testing involve incredibly complex load applications. Blade tests are typically fatigue tests focused on the blade root, where the highest loads and moments occur. Loading must replicate the precise interplay of lift and drag with respect to blade rotation and the airframe’s forward velocity. Hub testing is even more complex, requiring test engineers to replicate the variable loads of the blades at every attachment point on the hub in concert with the variable loads that simulate the rotation of the hub and the velocity of the airframe.

MTS brings unmatched experience and expertise to all aspects of aerospace testing, including component testing for helicopters. Building on more than four decades of customer success, MTS provides all the technology required to conduct these tests with extreme accuracy, efficiency and confidence. Specific offerings for helicopter hub and blade testing include:

• High-performance, fatigue-rated actuators and custom fixturing
• State-of-the-art software that seamlessly integrates control and data
   acquisition channels and is optimized for large channel counts, large amounts of
   data and phase control
• Versatile digital controllers for high-speed, real-time closed loop control, data 
   acquisition, function generation and transducer conditioning
• Clean, quiet hydraulic power units