Ageing in the heating oven

"Prevention rather than recall", casually speaking you could sum up the quality management of the automobile supplier Leoni, one of the largest and most successful cable manufacturers worldwide, with this motto. Of course the product quality of all components has the highest priority for the automobile industry. An important part of the worldwide certified Leoni quality management system is the testing of prototypes and series products in the Memmert universal oven UFP 400.

Safety for people and equipment

Leoni supplies wiring, optical fibre, cables and cable systems worldwide, predominantly to the automobile industry, as well as other sectors such as aerospace, electrical appliances, automation and medical technology. As is widely known, the automotive industry is extremely demanding, and so the crucial factor in the success of Leoni was, and still is, a constantly high product quality over decades. The instruments of the quality inspectors include testing in accordance with national and international standards such as ISO 6722, LV112, CSA, VDE or UL. In addition, every vehicle manufacturer has its own standards, of course, according to which safety-relevant components and others have to be tested. A great deal of work for the quality testing laboratory in Roth, Germany.

Artificial aging in the heating oven

Through a simulation in the heating oven, the Leoni quality laboratory tests the behaviour of cables and vehicle wiring under extreme temperature conditions, the functional efficiency after artificial ageing and resistance towards fuels, lubricants and environmental influences. Uwe Oberender, team leader in the laboratory, describes the extensive requirements, the Memmert universal oven UFP 400 reliably fulfills during the ageing tests: “Most important is a rapid setting-up of various air exchanges per hour via the Celsius software or the MEMoryCard, in accordance with various standards. Additionally, no overshoots while heating up during the ageing phase, a rapid recovery after the removal of individual samples, an exact temperature distribution in the Memmert heating oven and a user-friendly operation.” Safety in a vehicle must be uncompromising, which also applies to absolute reliability and precision of the test devices and procedures.