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The Melbourne-based testing services company has committed to leveraging experiences from its recent multi-year engagement with Ford to bolster its offering to Defence.
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APV Corporation has officially completed a multi-year project with Ford Australia, which involved facilitating crash tests for the global automotive company.
The work involved supporting the vehicle crash-test program for the Ford Ranger model, which formed part of APV’s broader push to develop a new collaborative international test and evaluation (T&E) capability to underpin product development and release schedules.
The program included the testing and evaluation of prototype and development vehicles, as well as the validation of final assembly vehicles.
The multi-year project culminated with a validation program, testing the vehicles in accordance with international standards.
“At APV, we crash tested 22 vehicles and monitored the performance of the safety management systems and assessment of injury levels,” Harry Hickling, managing director of APV Corporation, said.
“This included the monitoring of the performance of the safety management system, vehicle sensors, accelerometers, airbag and restraint systems through to the fuel systems being shut down, as designed, during the crash event.
“Engineering data being sent back to the Ford engineering team was used to correlate test results with their engineering models to confirm that each vehicle met the safety and survivability requirements established by the design team.”
The tests required more than 200 channels of data, recorded at a sample rate of up to 20,000 samples per second for post-crash analysis, with 18 high-speed, high-definition cameras recording each test from above, below, outside and inside the vehicles.
The Ford team leveraged metrology level scanning of the vehicles both pre- and post-crash to assess deformation in critical areas of the vehicles and compare them to other simulation results.
The total value of APV’s investment in new equipment to support the project exceeded $3 million.
APV has pledged to leverage the experience in prospective work in the defence space, building on its previous support for major projects in the land domain.
“The Next-Gen Ford Ranger sets a new bar in vehicle safety within its class, achieving a five-star ANCAP rating against the latest test protocols,” Hickling added.
“APV is proud to have collaborated closely with Ford to bring their vision to reality.
“Similarly, we want to leverage off this capability to support Defence industry with their research, product engineering, T&E and in-service support goals,” concluded Hickling.
[Related: APV’s seatbelt harnesses pass blast testing for the HDA Huntsman self-propelled howitzer]
