Functioning and reliability

Malfunction or even breakdown of a new car in rain, snow or extreme temperatures not only causes high warranty costs but also severe damage to the reputation of the manufacturer. Extensive tests are therefore carried out on road vehicles to prevent problems such as water penetration into engine intake systems and to guarantee the safe functioning of windshield wipers/washers, windshield heaters, window lifts or headlights.

Commercial vehicles (trucks and busses), which are subject to a considerably higher degree of use (annual mileage, servicing intervals) must fulfil extremely high standards of availability and reliability. All testing conditions required for this purpose can be simulated at the Vienna Climatic Wind Tunnel in a reproducible manner.

Thermal management

Thermal management denotes the combination of all boundary parameters and interfaces within and to the engine compartment, with special emphasis being placed on drag, air baffles in the engine compartment and so-called underhood flow. This requires the thermal situation with relative wind, load cycles and various power ratings to be simulated as realistically as possible.

Thermal comfort in passenger compartments

Thermal comfort tests are designed to measure individual parameters (air temperature, flow velocity, radiation temperature etc.) for optimisation purposes (e.g. flow velocity distribution at exhaust outlets) and to determine comfort parameters for qualitative comfort analyses.

Thanks to the size of the climatic wind tunnels, such tests can be performed even on the largest long-distance buses.

Tests according to the ATP Agreement

Trailers and containers designed for the transport of perishable foodstuffs must fulfil stringent requirements. These requirements, such as a low heat transfer coefficient or the refrigeration capacity of the refrigeration unit, must be verified in special tests for type approval. Follow-up tests are required for transport vehicles already in operation.

Rail Tec Arsenal is the official testing and certification body for Austria according to the ATP Agreement.