New development: Rotational impact tester for impact tests

Hegewald & Peschke launches new testing machine for highly dynamic tests

Hegewald & Peschke MPT GmbH has completed the development of a rotational impact tester for the highly dynamic testing of fiber composites and technical textiles. Together with cooperation partners from the TU Chemnitz (Chair of Structural Lightweight Construction and Plastics Processing), the STFI (Saxon Textile Research Institute e.V.) and the company Ehmer Elektromaschinenbau, the aim of a funded project was to realize strain rates in the range of 80 s-1 to 350 s-1 at reaction forces of up to 50 kN by impact tests. Material characteristics at such high strain rates are used for crash simulations, e.g. in lightweight construction or in the automotive industry. They represent the material behavior at 50 km/h (14 m/s).

In the developed rotational impact tester, a 300 kg rotating flywheel mass takes over the speed preselection and energy storage. However, other rotating masses can also be realized. For the actual test, the energy is transferred to a linear slide with the integrated specimen holder. The actual tensile test then takes only a few milliseconds. Compared to other technologies, with which equally dynamic tests are carried out (e.g. pendulum impact testers, drop testers or high-speed testing machines), the rotational impact tester stands out due to its high testing speed and its high impact energy, at a comparatively small machine size.

The prototype is currently already being used for materials testing at the Chemnitz University of Technology. We are happy to offer video demonstrations and preliminary tests.