Modern road and rail vehicles must meet high demands in terms of safety, reliability and availability as also thermal comfort and environmental friendliness. Proper functioning under extreme climatic conditions plays a key role in this context. Tests in the climatic wind tunnel are therefore of major importance for preventive quality assurance in vehicle development and modification.
Prototypes of private and commercial vehicles are usually subjected to stringent climatic tests in the automotive industry.
In the rail vehicle industry, however, climatic tests are rarely used as a measure of preventive quality assurance although these tests could substantially contribute to reducing technical risk and problems during operation.
Successful climatic tests require the vehicle manufacturer to define and maintain specific quality objectives under specific climatic conditions. This may involve the adaptation or development of test procedures in order to be able to meet new requirements or solve arising problems.
Rail Tec Arsenal takes up these new challenges and has carried out pioneering work in the investigation of fundamental test parameters, e.g. hydrometeor simulation, and the development of new test procedures, e.g. snow accumulation tests in the engine compartment, soiling tests, functional tests or determining the energy consumption cycle in rail vehicles.