As a part of their overall product development strategy, Total Connections 2009 have made an investment to expand their in-house testing facility.
They supply some of the largest organizations in the UK, including McLaren for non-production motorsport cars, Airbus (specifically A350) and BAE Systems for military applications.
Image Credit: Tinius Olsen
Other customers include the London Underground, Jaguar Cars and the Royal Navy. They are based in Calne, Wiltshire. In the fight against the current Covid 19 pandemic, they have also supplied products to the NHS Temporary Nightingale and Field hospitals.
“Total Connections 2009 Ltd have made a significant investment in new machinery in 2020, mainly to automate our manufacturing processes and increase our overall offering,” said Director of Engineering, Ross Davies.
As a Design Engineer, this machine is exciting for me as it will massively help with our product development, giving us the ability to carry out mechanical tests of cable assemblies up to and in excess of 1000 mm2 to BSEN61238.
Ross Davies, Director of Engineering
A Tinius Olsen 50ST, which can be used for compression, tension, flexure and shear strength testing on materials and assemblies, is the machine in question. In this study, the machine will be mainly used for a railway industry application in cable testing and pull out testing of a 2000 amp plug and socket.
A wide range of load cells are available at differing capacities, which supply precise applied load measurements from the smallest test specimen to the full machine capacity.
With the addition of strain measurement instrumentation, grips to hold the specimen, and of course, the Tinius Olsen Horizon testing software, the 50ST becomes a complete, powerful test system.
“Our 50ST is an extended machine, down rated to 25 kN due to the extension. This was required as there was not enough cross head movement for the larger lugs we produce, as the standard we are testing to requires a minimum of 500 mm of visible cable between lugs.”
“We started looking for a suitable UTM over a year ago and were really impressed with the way Tinius Olsen went that extra mile to help. This included the writing of a bespoke program and a site visit to demo a 5 kN machine to BSEN61238, which performed the test exactly as requested,” said Ross.
I was also very impressed with the accuracy of the load cells with the 25 kN load cell calibrated down to 50 N, whereas an equivalent machine from another manufacturer we considered was down to 5% (1250 N) and accurate within 0.5% of reading. The range was also a big factor as we will be testing from 100 N on plug contact force tests, all the way up to 25 kN on the cable tests. Another major factor was the ease of use of the accompanying Horizon testing software.
Ross Davies, Director of Engineering
Image Credit: Tinius Olsen
However, it isn’t just the capabilities of the 50ST that has impressed Ross.
One other thing I noted on delivery was the packaging was some of the best I have seen, even though we were only 100 miles from Tinius Olsen, it was packaged like it could ship to the other side of the world.
Ross Davies, Director of Engineering
This information has been sourced, reviewed and adapted from materials provided by Tinius Olsen.
For more information on this source, please visit Tinius Olsen.