Testing, testing and testing – Trimaran dagger board

Challenging productivity and weight further, we now build our hollow dagger boards in one piece which takes a few tricks …and (hard) experiences. One of the tricks is to decide how to test – what kind of test jig, test procedures, test loads, what to look for etc.
In our test procedures we quite frequently use a load cell, in this case testing a load of two tons. Clearing the design load however is not enough, at the same time we need to check for amongst others leakages that only show under severe load, which is another challenge. And yes – we found some in the first tests which forced us to go back and rethink laminate cuts, vacuum bags placing etc. Step by step potential problems are removed. The conclusion? Testing, though time consuming, is very rewarding not only from the point of view of saving our customers (cannot be a strong enough expression!) as much as it possible from surprises, but in many instances it also reveals critical variations in the production process which then can be stabilized and this in itself is productivity rewarding.

/Jan