Mag-Drive

During development of an oscillating spray bar for the Atmosfar chamber to ensure close compliance with pluviometry requirements of Volvo Std-423-0014 (ACT-1), Volvo VCS 1027, 1449 (ACT-2) and Ford CETP 00.00-L-467, the Ascott development team were faced with a challenge.

Actuation of the spray bar would normally require some form of access hole for the drive shaft.

Wishing to cut no more holes in the inside of the cabinet than absolutely necessary the Ascott development team came up with an innovative new drive mechanism, the MAG-DRIVETM (Patent Pending).

Outside the fibreglass test chamber sits the drive mechanism, connected to a circular drive plate containing high attraction rare earth magnets.  Inside the chamber on the end of the oscillating spray bar sits another circular drive plate, again containing rare earth magnets.  Such is the attractive force of these magnets that the magnetic force between the two drive plates is strong enough to operate through the thick fibreglass wall of the chamber.

With no direct contact between the drive plates the MAG-DRIVETM operates as a clutch, should anything get in the way of the spray bar during operation it will simply stop moving.

If you wish to operate the chamber without the spray bar, as it has no permanent drive or mounting mechanism it can simply be removed to return the chamber to standard operation.

2016 Automotive Testing Expo in Chennai

Ascott exhibited at the Indian Automotive Testing Expo held in Chennai from April 20th – 22nd at the Chennai Trade centre. This was the second of four such shows we are attending in 2016.

The first was held in Seoul, Korea in January and the contrast between this and the temperature/humidity in Chennai couldn’t have been greater! The quality of visitors was the same though, with most of the major Indian vehicle manufacturers sending representatives – in some cases by the bus load!

We were exhibiting an S1000iP Premium salt spray test chamber, which was en-route to Indian customer; Hema Engineering – one of several Ascott chambers they have ordered, and one they kindly allowed us to exhibit. The exhibition stand was manned by representatives from Unitron Instrumentation Technology, Ascott’s exclusive partner for the past 20 years in India.

The managing directors of both Ascott and Unitron, who were both in attendance, were very pleased with number of visitors and the quality of the enquiries received. Our attendance at this show further reinforces our position as the number one supplier of corrosion test chambers to the automotive industry in India.

Ascott Reaches New Heights … Again!!

To improve upon wooden blocks and other ad hoc methods Ascott have developed a kit for raising the height of chambers on site.

The kit is very easily fitted, the chamber is simply lifted with a fork lift truck and extension stilts lock into the fabricated frame on all 4 corners.

Once lowered the chamber height is increased by approximately 138mm +/- 10mm and is easily adjusted for uneven floors at the 4 corners with the use of the integrated adjustable feet.

The kit can either be supplied with the initial delivery or at a later date should the chamber be moved and need raising in the future.

The kit has been developed to fit all Ascott chambers and the part number is ACC56.

Ascott Passes It’s Bike Test!!

The footprint of the Indian Bajaj Group stretches over a wide range of industries, spanning automotive, home appliances, lighting, iron and steel, insurance, travel and finance.

The flagship company, Bajaj Auto, is the second largest manufacturer of Motorcycles in India and currently produces around 650,000 motorcycles a year, the brand is well known throughout Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia and the company is the World’s fourth largest manufacturer of two and three wheeled vehicles.

Bajaj started manufacturing motorcycles in 1962 and now operates from three different sites in India, employing around 800 workers.

The R & D Centre located in Pune had a requirement to test motorcycle components to a range of environmental test standards including ASTM B117, CASS, VDA and JASO Cyclic standards.

To enable this testing Bajaj purchased 4 chambers from Ascott representative in the region, Unitron, including a CC2000XP which can test fully assembled motorcycles.

Bajaj selected Ascott and Unitron as supply partners because of Ascott’s excellent reputation for reliability coupled with Unitron’s reputation for customer service.

Bajaj is considering installing Ascott chambers in its other two manufacturing sites and is additionally insisting it’s sub-contractors test their components in Ascott environmental test chambers.

2016 Automotive Testing Expo in Seoul

The ‘Automotive Testing’ series of exhibitions are focused entirely on vehicle and associated systems testing within the automotive industry, and are intended to appeal to test and quality engineers working in this sector.

These exhibitions started in Germany and have spread to other countries where significant automotive manufacturing takes place, including South Korea, India, China and the USA.

The shows tend to attract our core customers, in good numbers, so we have been increasing our attendance every year. Since 2015 Ascott have exhibited at all 5 of these venues.

The 2016 exhibition season began in January with the Automotive Testing Show at the ‘Kintex’ exhibition centre, located just outside Seoul in South Korea, at which Ascott exhibited a 1000L cyclic corrosion test chamber. The booth was staffed by Chris Gates the Managing Director of Ascott, who was assisted by Mr Su Ik Lee the boss of local agent; Lee Su Trade and his two engineers.

Lee Su Trade have represented Ascott successfully for many years in Korea and have helped to establish Ascott as a brand leader in the market there, with many well-known Korean companies using our products, including;

As usual, we received a great deal of interest and a lot of new customer enquiries at the show, as well as showing off our latest products to old customers. We had a busy three days as the photographs illustrate!

As you will also see from the photos, we are all wearing overcoats inside the exhibition hall!.  The temperature was -15C outside and didn’t feel much warmer inside!! The heating system was simply unable to cope with such cold temperatures. Fortunately next year the exhibition dates for this show have been moved to March, so it should be a little warmer.

Psychrometric Humidity Measurement and Control (PSY-MAC) for Atmosfär chambers

The Atmosfär chamber, which Ascott first launched in 2013, has now received an addition to its humidity control and measurement system, featuring precision psychrometric technology. We call this new system PSY-MAC for short.

Summary Features & Benefits

A solution developed in conjunction with Volvo as an approved test mechanism for the Volvo VCS 1027, 1449 (ACT-2) standard.

The addition of the PSY-MAC system provides the Atmosfär test chamber with a wider operating envelope, with improved performance at humidity levels around 95%RH.

Psychrometric humidity measurement delivers a mechanism unaffected by frequent cycles of extreme humidity, ensuring lifetime integrity of measurement.

Following the successful conclusion of trials, Ascott is pleased to announce that they are adding the PSY-MAC system to all Atmosfär test chambers supplied from September 2015.

This additional feature has been made available at no extra cost to new customers.

Background

The highly demanding Volvo Std-423-0014 (ACT-1, Volvo VCS 1027, 1449 (ACT-2) and Ford CETP 00.00-L-467 cyclic corrosion test standards  require extended periods of climate control at 95%RH with a total calibration accuracy of +/-3%RH.

Volvo engineers in particular are convinced that psychrometric humidity measurement provides significant performance advantages over other humidity measurement techniques, especially at such high levels of humidity. Volvo engineers have indicated that it is highly likely that psychrometric humidity measurement will become mandatory within the next revision of their test standard. Therefore they requested that Ascott develop such a system within the Atmosfär chamber.

What is Psychrometric Humidity Measurement?

Psychrometric humidity measurement is a well established method for determining humidity levels in a moving air-stream. It utilises two closely matched temperatures sensors, one with the sensing element exposed (called the ‘dry’ sensor/bulb) and one with the sensing element enclosed in a ‘wet sock’ (called the ‘wet’ sensor/bulb). For anything less than a saturated (100%RH) environment, there will be a small difference in the temperature measured by these two sensors. The ‘wet’ sensor will be at a slightly lower temperature than the ‘dry’ sensor due to evaporation from the wet sock surrounding it passing into the air-stream. This difference is called the depression temperature and can used to calculated the humidity of the passing air-stream.

Why Add Psychrometric Humidity Measurement?

In a conventional corrosion test chamber, the use of psychrometric humidity measurement system is not viable because two of the principles requirements for accurate measurements can not be satisfied:

There is insufficient air-flow across the wet and dry sensors (this is recommend to be no less than 10m/sec).

The wet sock requires a pure water supply and will be contaminated by the pollutents (eg; salt) which are introduced into most corrosion tests and some point.

Although other humidity measurement systems, such as the capacititive sensors fitted as standard to Ascott Atmosfär chambers work well, they can only provide intermittent measurement of humidity at the 95%RH level, at the accuracy required by the Volvo & Ford tests.

The Ascott Solution

To alleviate the effects of contamination inside the chamber, Ascott’s development team came up with an innovative solution. The psychrometric humidity measurement system was placed in a module outside the chamber, between the air conditioning unit and the cabinet, isolated from the effect of the cabinets harsh environment by a large and automatically operating butterfly valve.

The required airflow of 10 m/s is provided by the ACC29 air conditioning unit and when the airflow is cut off during any cycle in the programme, valves operate to isolate the chamber from the air inlet pipe to ensure contamination cannot feed into the enclosure.

Pure water is vital for the operation of the ‘wet sock’ sensor.  To provide this a header tank maintains water in the reservoir, continually overflowing to a permanent drain to ensure water purity is maintained and contamination of the ‘wet sock’ is avoided.  In addition to the permanent drain, the system has a full purge at the end of every cycle to make sure the water is clean.

Extended range of humidity control

Not only is the new Ascott solution suitable for testing to the Volvo standard, it also improves the performance envelope of the Atmosfär chamber, allowing tests to be conducted in conditions to be created over a wider range of tempertature and humidity combinations.

S450iS Reaches New Heights!!

The Ascott development team recently went the extra mile during the manufacture of a S450IS chamber for a customer in France.

Unable to position the chamber with access to a low level drain, a custom high level chassis was developed to raise the entire unit by 230mm, allowing gravity to take its natural course when draining water from the chamber.

Rotork Controls

One of the world’s leading manufacturers of electrical process and actuation equipment, Rotork Controls, has enhanced its design and testing capability with the latest generation corrosion testing system from Ascott Analytical Equipment Ltd.

Building on its long-standing use of Ascott equipment, the move reflects Rotork Controls’ commitment to quality and the critical role played by its equipment in some of industry’s most challenging environments – from petro-chemical to water-works and from marine to power generation.

With a capacity of some 450 litres, the test chamber recreates wetting, salt spray, drying and humidity conditions in a highly controlled environment.

“The long term performance and quality of our equipment is fundamental as it often carries out critical functions that can protect against the risk of extremely expensive down time,” says Geoff Beeho, Chief Development Engineer at Rotork Controls.

“The cyclic capability is of particular importance as it allows us to get closer to real environments,” he adds. The testing can assess site performance across two and a half years in just 1000 hours – or six weeks – in the laboratory.

Key equipment facts

  • Ascott CC450iP offers 450 litre capacity
  • Corrosion resistance tests substrate – typically high pressure die-cast aluminium – and powder coating
  • Two and a half years’ site performance tested in just 1000 hours
  • Chamber design accommodates Rotork Controls components of varying sizes – including metal elements and some sub-assemblies.

New Exhaust Scrubber

The new Ascott Analytical salt scrubber is now available – designed to remove highly corrosive salt from the chamber exhaust without the need to vent to atmosphere outside the building.

Self-contained and easily located alongside any Ascott salt spray chamber, the unit requires only a connection to the exhaust outlet, a floor level drain, a single-phase electricity and a pressurised water supply.

“The development allows corrosion analysis to be undertaken at the most convenient location and minimises the need for ducting or ventilation,” says Ascott Analytical MD, Chris Gates.

He points out that the unit condenses salt-water droplets from the exhaust which then combines for washing out with liquid that is retained in the base of the unit. The design uses a re-circulating spray system via an integral water pump, thereby minimising water wastage.

Key equipment facts

-Self-contained, compact design – with a footprint of less than 35 cm x 35 cm and a height of less than 64 cm

-Easily positioned alongside salt spray chamber

-Re-circulating spray minimises water wastage

-Minimal connection requirement

-Opens up opportunity to locate test chamber virtually anywhere in a production environment

New Renault Test Kit

Ascott Analytical Equipment has developed an adaptation of its latest range of cyclic corrosion chambers to suit major vehicle manufacturer, Renault, and its suppliers worldwide.

Based on a CC1000iP unit, the adaptation is centred on a kit that comprises a series of special attachments to meet Renault’s D17 2028 cyclic corrosion test standard – commonly referred to in the automotive industry as the ECC-1 test.

“Where typical usage will see salt spray solution sprayed at a rate of 1 to 2 ml/80cm²/hour, Renault’s requirements are for a higher fall-out rate over a shorter period of time. ECC-1 requires a fall-out rate equivalent to 5 ml/80cm²/hour to be delivered over a 30 minute ‘pollution’ phase followed by precisely controlled variations in humidity at a single set temperature of 35ºC,” says Ascott Analytical MD, Chris Gates – who points out that the company is represented in France and in all French-speaking countries by Labomat Essor.

Additional modifications to meet Renault’s specification include a system for delivering high salt spray fall-out rates at maximum homogeneity, purpose designed support racks for specific components, a wall wash facility, an insulated viewing window and a salt solution consumption sensor.

“We are delighted to have been able to work closely with such a major and well-respected company to help ensure that its manufacturing operations gain from accurate and appropriate corrosion testing procedures,” Chris Gates concludes.

Key equipment facts

  • Development centred on modification to CC1000iP unit to suit Renault requirements.
  • Development meets Renault’s D17 2028 cyclic corrosion test standard – commonly known as the ECC-1 test.
  • Configuration enables parts under test to mimic closely vehicle road test results.
  • Cabinet features pneumatically operated canopy, large viewing window and touch sensitive, user-friendly control panel.
  • Modifications relate to salt spray fall-out rates, provision of support racks, wall wash capability, insulated viewing window and salt solution consumption sensor.
  • Development of significance to Renault and its suppliers worldwide.