Ramona Adams
Drive System Design‘s North American subsidiary has established a new facility in Michigan to support the design, test and development of defense vehicles.
The facility is meant to help the defense industry build vehicles that consume less fuel without compromising lethality or passenger safety, the engineering consultancy said Friday.
“Improving fuel consumption has a direct impact on the safety of soldiers but traditional solutions like light weighting and aerodynamics could compromise the vehicle, so a new approach is required,” said Jon Brentnall, president of DSD’s North American arm, DSD Inc.
Brentnall added that U.K.-based DSD has built a development center that works to help clients boost vehicle driveline efficiency, and the company wants to establish a similar test facility for the North American market.
The new test center will initially feature a loaded transmission efficiency test rig and will be expanded over the year to include a total of three driveline test equipment.
The first rig is intended to accommodate all transmission types and primarily support transmission efficiency tests.
DSD Inc. will add a hydraulic test stand for hydraulic valve body development and a tilt rig to provide lubrication flow analysis support at the facility.
The company’s engineers will work with customers at the facility throughout the design, development and validation processes.
