Testing

Huygens Engineers runs and designs practical testing and optimization (sub)programs for component development projects, technology development projects, and when needed also for application development projects and component engineering projects:

• Performance of parts at various levels of aggregation
• Optimization purposes
• Validation of product performance
• Certification

Testing programs may represent a substantial part of development projects. To have the steepest learning-curve possible, Huygens Engineers usually designs testing programs together with the customer and also with co-development partners. Measuring institutes such as MARIN, TNO, and ECN, may be involved as well; the objective nature of performance-measurement may be crucial, or highly specialized knowledge and equipment may be needed.

An example of such collaboration between a measurement institute and the crew of Huygens Engineers resulted in the publication "A Systematic Experimental Study on Powering Performance of Flapping Foil Propulsors", presented at the symposium of the Organisation of Naval Research in Gothenburg in 2012, thanks to the visionary attitude of AP Moller Maersk who commisioned the study. It is the first systematic measurement study of performance of flapping foils in the parametric range relevant for merchant ships.

The crew of Huygens engineers has experience in measurement programs involving the among others the following areas:

• Efficiency of ship propulsors
• Fluid-structure interaction (bending and heat)
• Heat transfer in mechanical assemblies
• Efficiency of mechatronic devices

For component-development and technology-development projects, design for measurement is an important added-value aspect of Huygens Engineers. The logical extension is the capability of Huygens Engineers to design smart-products, with integrated sensors, that log data for performance monitoring and identification of parameter combinations where performance can be further improved.

When the technology development project involves optimization in a system with many degrees of freedom for design, systematic measurement may become challenging due to exponential growth of the number of measurements with the number of degrees of freedom or independent operational parameters. The crew of Huygens Engineers has proven to be capable of fundamental analysis in such a situation. We can design efficient and effective measurement programs for optimization throughout a large number of variables that all affect performance, reliability and cost.