Full Vehicle Durability
Assess and validate vehicle body and chassis durability design targets to improve quality and minimize future warranty costs.
Validating full-vehicle body and chassis durability is essential for ensuring structural integrity, long-term reliability, and customer satisfaction. Automotive OEMs, suppliers, and proving-ground test labs rely on durability evaluations to detect fatigue issues early, optimize material usage, and mitigate future warranty risk. These organizations conduct instrumented proving-ground campaigns and laboratory-based durability simulations to confirm that vehicles can withstand millions of cycles of real-world loading across global driving environments.
Test Methods
Full-vehicle durability testing blends proving-ground evaluations with laboratory road simulation to replicate years of operational loading in a compressed timeframe. Engineers record real-world forces, motions, and accelerations using road-load data acquisition, then condense these inputs into representative durability drive files. In the lab, multi-axis road simulators apply these drive files through the wheels or suspension interfaces to evaluate fatigue, joint integrity, and chassis subsystem interactions under controlled, repeatable conditions. Many organizations also employ hybrid simulation, combining physical test hardware with computational models to represent road conditions, events, or subsystem behaviors that extend beyond the mechanical bandwidth of test rigs. This integrated approach improves correlation, increases test realism, and accelerates validation cycles. Together, these methods—accelerated spectrum playback, block-cycle durability, rough-road reproduction, correlation loops, and hybrid simulation—enable engineers to confirm durability design targets prior to production release.
Test Results
Automotive OEMs, suppliers, and research institutions use durability test data to predict fatigue life, validate digital models, refine structural design, and confirm subsystem interactions. These insights guide material selection, improve correlation between simulation and physical tests, reduce warranty exposure, and accelerate development cycles while ensuring global durability performance targets are met.
MTS Product Solutions
MTS delivers a comprehensive portfolio of full-vehicle durability solutions that combine high-fidelity road simulation, advanced hybrid capabilities, and industry-leading controls. Model 329 and Model 320 test systems offer exceptional kinematic accuracy and force capacity, while FlexTest® controllers and RPC® Connect software ensure precise, repeatable reproduction of complex road loads. Integrated hydraulics, data acquisition, and wheel-force transducers further enhance test efficiency, scalability, and correlation.
Test Methods
Full-vehicle durability testing blends proving-ground evaluations with laboratory road simulation to replicate years of operational loading in a compressed timeframe. Engineers record real-world forces, motions, and accelerations using road-load data acquisition, then condense these inputs into representative durability drive files. In the lab, multi-axis road simulators apply these drive files through the wheels or suspension interfaces to evaluate fatigue, joint integrity, and chassis subsystem interactions under controlled, repeatable conditions. Many organizations also employ hybrid simulation, combining physical test hardware with computational models to represent road conditions, events, or subsystem behaviors that extend beyond the mechanical bandwidth of test rigs. This integrated approach improves correlation, increases test realism, and accelerates validation cycles. Together, these methods—accelerated spectrum playback, block-cycle durability, rough-road reproduction, correlation loops, and hybrid simulation—enable engineers to confirm durability design targets prior to production release.
Test Results
Automotive OEMs, suppliers, and research institutions use durability test data to predict fatigue life, validate digital models, refine structural design, and confirm subsystem interactions. These insights guide material selection, improve correlation between simulation and physical tests, reduce warranty exposure, and accelerate development cycles while ensuring global durability performance targets are met.
MTS Product Solutions
MTS delivers a comprehensive portfolio of full-vehicle durability solutions that combine high-fidelity road simulation, advanced hybrid capabilities, and industry-leading controls. Model 329 and Model 320 test systems offer exceptional kinematic accuracy and force capacity, while FlexTest® controllers and RPC® Connect software ensure precise, repeatable reproduction of complex road loads. Integrated hydraulics, data acquisition, and wheel-force transducers further enhance test efficiency, scalability, and correlation.
- Model 329 Spindle-Coupled Road Simulators apply multi-axis forces and motions directly through vehicle spindles, enabling highly accurate reproduction of road-load histories. This configuration improves correlation, accelerates durability evaluations, and supports deep subsystem insight for chassis and body fatigue validation.
- Model 320 Tire-Coupled Road Simulators load the vehicle through its tires, reproducing vertical and longitudinal road inputs for long-duration durability, NVH, and BSR studies. Their efficient architecture supports high uptime and robust, repeatable proving-ground simulation in the laboratory.
- FlexTest® Controllers deliver high-bandwidth, real-time digital control for multi-actuator road simulation. Their precision, scalability, and synchronization capabilities ensure accurate reproduction of complex durability drive files and stable operation during demanding, high-duty-cycle tests.
- RPC® Connect Software provides advanced road-load processing, drive-file generation, and iterative correlation tools that convert measured proving-ground loads into accurate lab simulations. Its automation and analytics accelerate test development and improve simulation fidelity.
- Hybrid Simulation: Full-Vehicle HSRC blends physical testing with computational models to reproduce road events not easily achieved on conventional simulators. This hybrid method expands test realism, shortens development cycles, and improves durability insight early in design.
- Hybrid Simulation: Vehicle Bus Integration allows full-vehicle simulators to interact with production ECUs and control networks during durability tests. This ensures accurate responses from chassis, powertrain, and ADAS systems, improving correlation and validating controller behavior under realistic loading.
- SWIFT® Evo Wheel Force Transducers measure multi-axis forces and moments at the wheel with exceptional accuracy and bandwidth. These data improve RLDA quality, enhance drive-file creation, and enable tighter closed-loop control during lab-based durability simulations.
- Series 295 Hydraulic Service Manifolds maintain stable hydraulic pressure distribution across multi-actuator durability systems, improving control quality and system responsiveness. Their robust design supports demanding duty cycles common in long-duration road-load replication.
- SilentFlo™ 515 & 525 Hydraulic Power Units deliver clean, efficient hydraulic power with reduced noise and vibration, creating a more comfortable lab environment. Their reliability and tight pressure control support continuous, high-fidelity durability testing.
