The Lufft owned calibration laboratory is well equipped with air chambers, a sun chamber, wind tunnels and several pressure chambers. This means that almost all instruments that we produce can be tested and further developed in our laboratories. However one parameter was missing so far – and that was the rain!
Photo Credit: brunobarillari – Fotolia.com
The Lufft owned calibration laboratory is well equipped with air chambers for precise measurements of temperature and humidity, a sun chamber to generate sunlight, wind tunnels and several pressure chambers for measuring the air pressure. This means that almost all instruments that we produce can be tested and further developed in our laboratories. However one parameter was missing so far – and that was the rain!
If our developers wanted to improve the measurement of our rain sensors, they had to wait for the next rain to compare the values of the improved sensor with the values of references. This was very time consuming and long term unsatisfactory for our engineers.
Push the button and it will rain
After the very dry spring of 2013 with only few possibilities for comparative measurements, the Lufft engineers decided to search for a solution that would allow the laboratory to generate defined rain. But this proved very difficult as conventional shower heads are completely unsuitable due to the high flow rates. Finally, they had to develop a self-construction. After a project period of 6 months and cost of at least five figures we can now push the button and it will rain!
Our rain simulator RaiSi (stands for Rain Simulator) has a height of about 10m and was installed in a stairwell at the Lufft headquarters in Fellbach (near Stuttgart, Germany). RaiSi has been in operation since the second quarter of 2014 and has already generated hundreds of liters of rain. The rain intensity can be adjusted individually from a few drops to 200mm / h.
Thanks to RaiSi our developers no longer need to wait for the next rain to get comparative measurements. The first results are already available. The rain generator helped to further improve the radar measurement method of the rain detection. The improved algorithm is available with the latest firmware update for all WS-models with radar rain sensor. (WS400 and WS600)
You can look forward to many more improvements due to the defined rain generation of RaiSi.
Please come over to us and you also can let it rain!
