Solutions for the aerospace and defense industries

Among the many applications for which interfaceforce products are used in multiple markets, there may be none that require the highest levels of accuracy, quality and reliability as is the case in the aerospace and defense industries.

By classification, aerospace mainly includes those engaged in the production and maintenance of commercial aircraft. The defense market is defined as the market for military weapons and systems designed for use in the air, at sea or on land.

The aerospace and defense industries are global markets that continue to expand the use of precision sensing technologies to drive innovation in autonomous vehicles and flight systems, electric and hydrogen engines, and additive manufacturing applications. Interface is proud to serve the world's largest aerospace and defense (A&D) manufacturers and suppliers, providing world-class force and torque measurement solutions for these types of needs as well as their future inventions.

Over the past two years, trends in the global commercial space ecosystem and defense needs have created unique requirements that benefit from our five decades of being a premium provider to A&D equipment manufacturers and testing laboratories. We are able to meet these trending requirements through our standard designed to order and fully tailored to power, torque and systems. These solutions are used in testing all types of vehicles on the ground, in water and in flight.

A&D is a unique industry due to the complex requirements of many applications. When developing applications for other industries, we typically focus on solving some specific challenges, whether they are cost, security, performance, environment, or other technical design requirements. In aerospace and defense, all of these factors, as well as some special needs, must be taken into account. Aerospace and defense applications cannot fail. If they do so, both military and civilian personnel may be placed at risk. Therefore, Force products in the defense industry must be of the highest quality in all key factors.

Below are some applications for force measurement in the defense industry. Each demonstrates the criticality of proper force testing as well as the complexity of the projects Interface has been involved with.

SLS tank test
As stated in NASA's article on the SLS tank test, NASA's goal was to push the limits of a test version of the world's largest rocket tank. The project placed incredible stress on the tank through flight testing to push it to its breaking point. After five hours of testing and more than 260% of the expected flight load, the tank finally buckled. This allowed engineers to collect data about the tank to intelligently optimize the final rocket ship.

In this application, load cells played the key role in collecting flight force data. The extreme nature of the flight tests meant that the Load cells had to be incredibly durable and provide accurate data right down to the point of breakage.

Structural testing
The many hundreds of thousands of commercial and military vehicles on the market, especially those that fly, require numerous force tests to validate a design and ensure they are safe and of the highest quality to go into production. Load cells and torque converters are used for structural testing in a variety of vehicles. The torque of a helicopter rotor is measured and validated using a torque converter, or the wings and fuselage of an aircraft are run through wind tunnels and other stress tests with load cells installed to collect data. All of these force applications are critical to ensuring that these vehicles hold beyond their intended breaking point and provide complete safety for operators and passengers. There are a million different things a military pilot thinks about - the structural integrity of their aircraft should never be one of them.

Custom sensors
Another area that has grown in recent years as technology advances the aerospace and defense market is custom sensors. Testing has become more sophisticated as big data has become more widespread, and Interface has addressed this by working directly with customers to develop custom sensors that address unique challenges.

One of the largest areas where a growing need for custom sensors has been identified is test benches in thrust applications. Test stands are often used in field tests on rocket or aircraft engines. In certain field applications, the test bench is equipped with numerous load cells that must be customized with features such as weatherability, multiple bridges, very high precision, and more. The reason for this is that the cost of a thrust test using fuel alone can be incredibly high. A successful thrust test will typically only give you one shot. If there are any problems with