Control System for the Testing Device of Flood Barriers

New types of flood barriers must be tested before they are approved for use. One of these tests is the impact of a wood log. Implementation of this test is very difficult because the real wood log is very heavy and large and the test is very space consuming. Therefore, the special test device was built under the project VI20152018005 of the Ministry of the Interior of the Czech Republic. The wood log impact is simulated by a pneumatic engine with impactor head and this engine is controlled so that the impact to the tested flood barrier has the same speed and energy as the impact of the real wood log. It means the impact energy must be evaluated in real time during the test and the engine movement is stopped when the set energy value is reached (these parameters were obtained during impact tests with the real wood log). The design of the system for the pneumatic engine controlling is described in this article.