Weapons Bay Door Test Rig

Customer:

UK based aerospace company

Loadcell:

F254-Z3248 12kN

Generic Type:

Fatigue rated pancake loadcell

Special Features:

Extraneous force immunity

The customer required a means of measuring the force on an actuator closing a weapons bay door on a fighter aircraft. The installation required an axial force application to the loadcell via a lever system, which required a degree of transverse freedom to function correctly. The loadcell would be able to accommodate a defined internal movement of the input force centre whilst maintaining a solid load path between the actuator and door structure in its axial measurement sense.

The design used a standard design pancake loadcell, which incorporated a polarised flexure to allow a ±0.5mm deflection adjacent to the loading axis while still being able to transmit the load to the loadcell. The loadcell itself incorporated a moment insensitive bridge using 16 gauge sites to reduce the effect of the applied moment through the flexure.