Link Engineering – Long Experience in a Core Market

Link Engineering – Long Experience in a Core Market

The Automotive Industry

Link designs and manufactures a full range of test systems for laboratory, test-track and on-road vehicle evaluation including, for example:

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  Brake and transmission dynamometers
  
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  Vehicle data acquisition systems and transducers
  
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  Vehicle and aircraft chassis dynamometers
  
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  Material characterisation systems
  

Link is a market leader and supplies dynamometers and NVH test systems to the world’s major automotive manufacturers, to producers of automotive components, and to suppliers of automotive raw materials. To date, Link has delivered more than 100 vehicle data acquisition systems throughout the world.

Data Acquisition and Analysis System

The PULSE software is controlled by Link’s ProLink software package running under Windows^® 2000. ProLink provides the intuitive graphical user interface and maximises speed and flexibility in the capture and retention of all relevant test data. Monitored parameters include speed, torque, up to eight temperatures, relative humidity, applied pressure and many other parameters.

Engineering Expertise

Jim says, “Our test systems are used in R & D applications all over the world and, in addition to testing vehicle brakes, clutches and transmissions, we are expanding our solutions to include a wide range of other automotive components, such as steering assemblies, alternators, starter motors, etc.”.

Jim continues, “Our users are not generally NVH experts and so we aim to make our test systems as automated as possible. A really great development is TEDS (Transducer Electronic Data Sheet) equipped transducers. It’s a major plus for customers with little or no NVH experience. TEDS transducers reduce the setup time and there are far less errors because the transducer sensitivity is entered into the system automatically”.

James K. Thompson, PhD, PE, is Link’s NVH Sales and Marketing Executive Director

In-vehicle Testing

“There is an increasing trend towards in-vehicle testing for troubleshooting applications”, says Jim. Link Engineering has developed a new vehicle measurement system that provides full NVH measurement capabilities along with the ability to capture up to 72 channels of non-NVH data. The Link Model 3501 Modular Vehicle Data Acquisition System employs a modular approach. It’s the foundation for vehicle NVH cause and effect analysis and is a compact and highly integrated unit. The standard NVH module is 6/1-channel PULSE Multi-analyzer.

Testing Laboratories

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  Product NVH performance evaluations from components to complex systems – from large scale fleet or customer satisfaction surveys to detailed “cutting-edge” test and analysis
  
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  Root cause investigations to identify sources mechanisms, transmission paths, and subjective response
  
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  Vehicle interior and exterior noise and vibration measurements, including temperature and strain measurements
  

A new Link Testing Laboratory will soon be commissioned near Frankfurt, Germany.

A Preferred Supplier

Jim continues, “We also use a 6/1-channel PULSE system in our own test lab. Together with transducers, it’s extensively used to check the performance of our test systems before delivery to a customer, and for general investigative work and troubleshooting”.

Since the cooperation with Brüel & Kjær started in the beginning of 2001, Link has ordered more than twenty PULSE systems. Jim concludes, “This is positive proof of the success of both our companies and, of course, our customers favour PULSE as the standard analyzer installed in our NVH test systems. They appreciate that they get the best available analyzer with all the PULSE functionality and capabilities for a wide range of NVH test applications.”