 APL2 V2 has proven major capabilities Customer: DaimlerChrysler
Author: Winfried Sommerer
Country: Germany At DaimlerChrysler Stuttgart, Germany, Workstation APL2 V2 is used very successfully on turbo-charger test benches to support the testing of a large variety of turbo-chargers, and to process and analyze the results in quasi-real-time using sophisticated thermodynamic and graphical methods. Testing Support: On the test benches multiple measuring channels are connected via hardware and software to the APL2 application package. After a test starts, an APL2 function keeps searching for new measurements. Once detected it keeps automatically decoding the binary measurement values, calculating and graphically displaying the characteristics in 4 diagrams. Characteristic fields of similar turbo-charger engines can optionally be displayed in the background. The diagram scales are automatically adapted to arriving measurement values to enable the test engineers to directly check measuring quality and plausibility. Measuring Point Processing: All thermodynamic characteristics of the measurement points are immediately calculated and displayed in diagrams (with continuous lines by interpolation, color coded, and contour lines). The results are stored in APL2 data structures in the workspace and in parallel also in AP211 files. Drawing multiple characteristic diagrams upon each other enables visual comparison of different turbo-chargers. Interpolation methods based on Bezier Splines with calculation of the corresponding checkpoints are available as basis for a possible enhancement to manually correct the interpolations by dragging the mouse. The application supports transfer of result tables (including interpolation coordinates) to MS Excel and diagrams to MS Powerpoint. Excel based external characteristics tables can also be imported to be included in combined diagram displays. Analysis: Processing results, which test engineers decide are not plausible, can be combined with measuring and interim values and displayed in common diagrams to detect interdependencies and possible errors. For each different data type (or type group) an additional y-axis is drawn (with automatic scaling). Moving a special "line cursor", a vertical line, it is snapped to the measurement point with the closest x-position and displays the tabular values for all associated data. A second "line cursor" retrieves for another closest measurement point and displays the differences between the first and second measurement points data. These two line cursors enable the test engineer to judge the relations between different measurement points. If the correct function of a measuring channel or the stability of a measurement point are in doubt, the binary measurement value files can easily be statistically analyzed and graphically displayed (e.g. their curves over the measuring time). Bottom Line: Over the years of development and use of this application, Workstation APL2 V2 has proven major capabilities. | 
