Compliance sits at the heart of product design, especially in sectors like aerospace. Therefore, precision drives specialist maxon UK and Ireland has created a new aerospace catalogue showcasing its range of DO-160 compliant motors, gearboxes and encoders.
According to the Radio Technical Commission for Aeronautics (RTCA), airborne equipment for flying platforms, from helicopters to the largest passenger aircrafts, must pass DO-160 environmental conditions testing to prove survivability. However, to meet the standard, customers must invest significant sums of money on qualification testing.
Aerospace applications
Therefore, to make it easier for customers to source motors for aerospace applications, maxon has produced a new catalogue featuring products that have been modified to ensure they pass DO-160 environmental testing.
“Aviation and aerospace are highly regulated industries, so it’s only right that airborne equipment must undergo strict testing procedures to ensure its safety and survivability,” explained Andrew Gibson, aerospace sales engineer for maxon UK and Ireland.
“To meet the minimum standard, as outlined in the DO-160 manual, testing must be carried out to assess the effects of certain environmental conditions on aircraft performance. These include temperature, vibration, altitude, humidity, explosion proofness, lightning susceptibility, ingress of sand and dust, and salt fog testing.
“Rather than starting from scratch in the search for aerospace motors, the new catalogue will give our customers a starting point for their projects. The motors look identical to maxon’s standard industrial motors. However, they offer operating temperatures between -55 and 120 degrees Celsius, extended temperature lubrication, encapsulated magnets on the rotor, improved rotor fixation and high temperature winding.”
The motors in this catalogue are already used in systems that are fully DO-160 compliant. This means they have undergone strenuous testing to prove their survivability in aerospace equipment.
For example, random vibration testing has shown that maxon’s motors can withstand standard random vibrations of 7.94 GRMS for 10 minutes, and robust vibrations of 11.3 GRMS for three hours. Furthermore, humidity testing shows that they can survive in environments of between 85 and 95% relative humidity (RH), for up to 240 hours.
Enhancing performance
Beyond the DO-160 tests, there are other important factors enhancing the performance of maxon’s aerospace product range. For example, maxon’s engineers have measured the starting currents for motors or combinations with gears at low temperatures of -55 degrees Celsius. These products can also be supplied with quality assurance to the internationally recognised AS/EN9100 for aerospace.
With this product range, customers will benefit from superior motor performance and lower costs associated with qualification testing. maxon also offers acceptance test and first article inspection reports, change and configuration management and quality assurance agreements (QAAs). Together, this reassures customers that maxon is a safe and trusted partner for aerospace projects.
To request a copy of the catalogue or find out more about aerospace products, contact our aerospace sales engineer, Andrew Gibson on 01189 733337 or andrew.gibson@maxongroup.com.