Roush Opens Real-Time Simulation Road Test Lab
Roush customers can now test full vehicle durability in a fraction of the time, thanks to the Roush Advanced Durability Lab. The new $6 million purpose-built durability and road simulation test facility allows businesses to test the structural reliability of vehicles and vehicle components early in the product design timeline.
“Roush’s investment in the Roush Advanced Durability Lab ensures products in the development phase live up to users’ expectations,” said Jeff Johnston, president of testing services for Roush. “It gives us the unique capability to serve our customers at subsystem, component and full vehicle levels.”
In lieu of driving vehicles on a proving ground, the lab acts as a full vehicle road simulator. It recreates real-world forces and motions while reducing total durability test time. A key piece of the new lab’s technology is the world’s only contract six-degree-of-freedom (6-DOF) test rig. The rig simulates the complex nonlinear events that are required for meaningful durability road simulation.
“As modern vehicle technology continues to advance, so does the testing,” Johnston said. “Roush can engineer and release solutions to any issues found during real-time simulation, which will save customers money, provide faster testing cycles and get products to market faster.”
The full-service lab includes 2,500 square feet of bedplate for vehicle, sub-system and component durability testing, private and isolated control rooms, central 450-gallons-per-minute hydraulic pump, and a cooling tower.
“Roush’s expansion adds a new servo-hydraulic infrastructure that enables a myriad of other testing applications, including component durability, calibration and test-to-failure,” Johnston said. “By leveraging Roush’s 40-plus years of vehicle and systems engineering experience, we can provide OEMs, Tier 1 suppliers and other customers with unparalleled service from design, development and validation all the way through to production.”
Located in Roush’s Building 11 in Livonia, Michigan, the facility will be available for customers in the automotive, electric vehicle, autonomous and wheeled military industries starting June 1.
