Looking from the highly specialised niche of the military vehicles industry, the world of global car production can seem pretty remote. Not only are modern cars vastly more complicated than a typical armoured personnel carrier, they also have significantly different development processes, and development budgets that might as well be from a different planet. But with the specialist vehicle industries facing increasing global competition and rapidly growing legislative and product liability pressures, should we be looking more closely at the expertise available in traditional automotive sectors? Julian Bryan, Head of Strategic Marketing at leading UK test and engineering centre Millbrook believes the automotive industry has a lot to offer. “I certainly see the two sectors coming a lot closer together,” he enthuses. “We have an increasing number of clients from the military vehicle sectors asking for the same type of programmes that we have been delivering for our car and heavy duty commercial vehicle customers for more than 30 years.”

As well as traditional durability and design validation projects, these programmes increasingly involve ergonomic studies, work on vehicle refinement, emissions, noise reduction and driver comfort,

and homologation to the rapidly growing range of standards required by different markets around the world. There is also growing interest in Millbrook’s ability to validate for a wide range of global fuels including biofuels - essential when the availability of specific blends can not be guaranteed.

Comfort and durability
Walking around the many laboratories at Millbrook’s Bedfordshire site, it becomes clear just how much effort has gone into developing systems and expertise that can deliver these programmes quickly and cost-effectively. Over the past five years, they have been increasingly used by the military vehicle industry to help them design and develop a new generation of affordable, highly durable vehicles that both perform well in the field and take reasonable care of their occupants.

An example of these systems is an environmental test chamber that can put a module (an assembly such as a seat, door or instrument panel) through an entire lifetime of vibrations, thermal stresses and battlefield shocks, all in just a couple of