TRW Test Track In Heihe, Northern China

With TRW being one of the world’s leading suppliers of automotive parts and technologies, you will often hear us talk about the stringent tests that we put all our products and technologies through before they go to market – but have you ever wondered where we do this – or indeed who are the people behind the testing?
 
After nearly four years in the making and following significant investment on behalf of TRW, the business’s newest world-class winter testing facility in Heihe (WTCH), Northern China has recently completed its first season as a fully functional and operational centre of excellence. Although comprehensive testing has been happening at Heihe for the past few years, the team has spent its first season with the home comforts of their new offices and accommodation. At the end of the season TRW’s manager of vehicle applications, China, David Kay, reflects about life, work and testing in Heihe.
 
Situated by the Songjitun Reservoir in the Heilongjiang Province of China, the facility is supported by engineers from TRW’s technical center in Shanghai. It allows TRW to support domestic and international customers locally with their product development requirements by reducing the time and costs of winter testing.

The facility is situated on approximately 350 acres, comprised of around 320 acres of lake tracks and 30 acres of land tracks. The location includes a dynamic area, a handling track, ice testing circles of 200m and 500m in diameter, and packed ice, polished ice and mue-split surfaces strategically designed for active safety systems development.

“You may be forgiven for thinking that Northern China is a quiet, laid back sort of place….peaceful, with not an awful lot going on. You would be wrong!” said David.

 “The 16 week season has seen over 3,800 man hours; a total of 16 vehicles developed and validated; 523 lunches provided to visiting customers and TRW employees; seven customer events; 66 weekend days worked by vehicle application engineers; one health & safety and one finance audit; three weddings; three new babies; and a combined total of 80.5 weeks spent away from home by a total of nine vehicle application engineers – a number which is set to almost double during the next season to 17.”

“So you could say, we’ve been a bit busy!”

David continued: “The facility offers comprehensive product development and validation during the winter season – typically from December through to the end of March when it is not only cold enough for testing to take place – from –10 right down to –40 degrees Celsius, but when the ice is of the necessary thickness for testing on the lake.”

“The facility already offers arguably the best variety of high quality track surfaces in China. Of particular note is the big and small circle track – the inside diameter being made of polished ice and the outside diameter consisting of packed snow.

 “It is our intention to grow and develop the facility with further functional tracks to respond to market demand. We are looking at the possibility of adding a stepwise extension, which will add for example, Traction Control hills, heated split-mue, ESP tracks and further handling tracks. We are also conducting studies to investigate how to utilise it during the summer months. It’s a case of watch this space!”

The tracks are designed to run tests under customer specified, ‘repeatable’ conditions. Tests are carried out on active safety systems such as, advanced braking and steering systems such as Anti lock brake systems (ABS), Traction control systems (TCS), Electronic stability Control (ESC) and integrated vehicle control and driver assist technologies such as electric parking brake (EPB).

“There are many different winter tests carried out at Heihe on a variety of different cold weather surfaces – including ice and snow of varying density and type,” David continued. “The engineers test every driving condition and speed imaginable. They test fully loaded vehicles and empty ones. They check stability from every conceivable angle, test manoeuvres and check for performance to make your driving experience safer. In fact, we owe them a great deal.”

“The dedication of the engineers that work at Heihe is in no doubt. It takes a special kind of person to spend months at a time in such isolated conditions – and we have them to thank for the high calibre of safety critical systems and technologies that we all take for granted in our vehicles today,” David concluded.

TRW has a network of 12 testing sites worldwide including six winter testing facilities, four warm weather facilities and two all-weather test tracks.