China expands vehicle safety footprint with new CAERI crash test centre

China has taken steps to expand its vehicle testing programme. An all-new crash-test facility of global standards, planned, constructed and installed by German company MESSRING, is now complete. It was commissioned by CAERI (China Automotive Engineering Research Institute Co) and is located in Chongqing. CAERI is responsible for all tests involving vehicle models (motorcycles, cars, buses, and trucks). 

Following an open tender for the gigantic crash-test facility, negotiations began with MESSRING in February 2010 to develop the testing centre in which virtually all globally recognized automobile certification tests can be performed, including the installation of all necessary system technologies and sensoring systems.

Dierk Arp, CEO at MESSRING, said: “Our activities in China began at quite an early stage, and we were particularly pleased that our bid for this gigantic facility was successful.”  

The building which houses the crash-test facility has a gross floor space of 25,000 square metres, the acceleration track for automobile tests has a length of 294 metres (200 metres are roofed over and the rest is outdoors), and a second, variable-angle, oblique impact track was installed that allows any angle of incidence adjustments to the main acceleration track. This permits the simulation of a broad spectrum of collision scenarios involving two vehicles.

“As a public institute, it is our responsibility to improve vehicle and traffic safety in China and make driving safer for the people. The fact that we saw all our criteria fulfilled in terms of the planning and construction of the crash-test facility was instrumental in our decision to choose MESSRING,” said Xu Wei, deputy director for Vehicle Safety at CAERI.

The system at CAERI is powered by two electric propulsion systems, developed especially for use in crash tests. Together, the two electric motors have a combined power rating of 2.4 megawatts. This allows vehicles with overall weights of up to five tonnes to be accelerated to a speed of 120kph before they collide with the impact block. Even high-speed crashes with 25-tonne trucks and buses can be simulated with this system – a unique capability, offered only by the facility in China. Nevertheless, the complete facility must work with exceptional precision, despite the high velocities and extreme forces used in testing vehicles at Chongqing. The tolerance limits defined by CAERI during the approval and acceptance of the facility in May 2013 were correspondingly tight. The maximum permitted deviation in speed with the track system under full load was only +/- 0.15 km/h and the precision with which two test vehicles collide in Car2Car tests had to be within a maximum tolerance bandwidth of +/- 1 centimetre. 

Commenting on the completed project, Yue Zhong Yao, deputy director for Vehicle Safety at the Chongqing Automotive Engineering Research Institute, said: “The collaboration with MESSRING proved to be extremely positive and was characterized by mutual respect. The product of our collaboration – the new testing centre in Chongqing – represents a milestone for CAERI and the advancement of car safety throughout China.”