Resonant plate and other resonant fixture shock techniques were developed in the 1980s at Sandia National Laboratories as flexible methods to simulate mid-field pyroshock for component qualification. Since that time, many high severity shocks have been specified that take considerable time and expertise to setup and validate. To aid in test setup and to verify the shock test is providing the intended shock loading, it is useful to visualize the resonant motion of the test hardware. Experimental modal analysis is a valuable tool for structural dynamics visualization and model validation. This chapter describes a method to perform experimental modal testing at pyroshock excitation levels, utilizing input forces calculated via the SWAT-TEEM (Sum of Weighted Accelerations Technique—Time Eliminated Elastic Motion) method and the measured acceleration responses. The calculated input force and the measured acceleration data are processed to estimate natural frequencies, damping, and scaled mode shapes of a resonant plate test system. The modal properties estimated from the pyroshock-level test environment are compared to a traditional low-level modal test. The differences between the two modal tests are examined to determine the nonlinearity of the resonant plate test system.
The resonant plate shock test is a dynamic test of a mid-field pyroshock environment where a projectile is struck against a plate. The structure undergoing the simulated field shock is mounted to the plate. The plate resonates when struck and provides a two sided shock that is representative of the shock observed in the field. This test environment shock simulates a shock in a single coordinate direction for components looking to provide evidence that they will survive a similar or less shock when deployed in their operating environment. However, testing in one axis at a time provides many challenges. The true environment is a multi-axis environment. The test environment exhibits strong off-axis motion when only motion in one axis is desired. Multiple fixtures are needed for a single test series. It would be advantageous if a single test could be developed that tests the multi-axis environment simultaneously. In order to design such a test, a model must be developed and validated. The model can be iterated in design and configuration until the specified multi-axis environment is met. The test can then execute the model driven test design. This report discusses the resonant plate model needed to design future tests and the steps and methods used to obtain the model. This report also details aspects of the resonant plate test discovered during the process of model development that aids in our understanding of the test.
Digital image correlation (DIC) is an established test technique in several fields including quasi-static displacement measurements. Recently there has been growing interest in using DIC to measure structural dynamic response and even extract modal parameters from that information. While high-speed cameras have become more ubiquitous, there are no commercial end-to-end packages for modal analysis based on image data, particularly when combined with traditional data acquisition systems. As such, the practitioner is left to develop several key data processing capabilities, hardware interface equipment, and testing practices themselves. This work highlights several practical aspects that have been encountered while establishing DIC as a viable modal testing capability in a laboratory environment.
In a typical optical test, a stereo camera pair is required to measure the three-dimensional motion of a test article; one camera typically only measures motions in the image plane of the camera, and measurements in the out-of-plane direction are missing. Finite element expansion techniques provide a path to estimate responses from a test at unmeasured degrees of freedom. Treating the case of a single camera as a measurement with unmeasured degrees of freedom, a finite element model is used to expand to the missing third dimension of the image data, allowing a full-field, three-dimensional measurement to be obtained from a set of images from a single camera. The key to this technique relies on the mapping of finite element deformations to image deformations, creating a set of mode shape images that are used to filter the response in the image into modal responses. These modal responses are then applied to the finite element model to estimate physical responses at all finite element model degrees of freedom. The mapping from finite element model to image is achieved using synthetic images produced by a rendering software. The technique is applied first to a synthetic deformation image, and then is validated using an experimental set of images.
Laser vibrometry has become a mature technology for structural dynamics testing, enabling many measurements to be obtained in a short amount of time without mass-loading the part. Recently multi-point laser vibrometers consisting of 48 or more measurement channels have been introduced to overcome some of the limitations of scanning systems, namely the inability to measure multiple data points simultaneously. However, measuring or estimating the alignment (Euler angles) of many laser beams for a given test setup remains tedious and can require a significant amount of time to complete and adds an unquantified source of uncertainty to the measurement. This paper introduces an alignment technique for the multipoint vibrometer system that utilizes photogrammetry to triangulate laser spots from which the Euler angles of each laser head relative to the test coordinate system can be determined. The generated laser beam vectors can be used to automatically create a test geometry and channel table. While the approach described was performed manually for proof of concept, it could be automated using the scripting tools within the vibrometer system.
The ability to measure full-field strains is desirable for analytical model validation or characterization of test articles for which there is no model. Of further interest is the ability to determine if a given environmental test’s boundary conditions are suitable to replicate the strain fields the test article undergoes in service. In this work, full-field strain shapes are estimated using a 3D scanning laser Doppler vibrometer and several post-processing methods. The processing methods are categorized in two groups: direct or transformation. Direct methods compute strain fields with only spatial filtering applied to the measurements. Transformation methods utilize SEREP shape expansion/smoothing of the measurements in conjunction with a finite element model. Both methods are used with mode shapes as well as operational deflection shapes. A comparison of each method is presented. It was found that performing a SEREP expansion of the mode shapes and post-processing to estimate strain fields was very effective, while directly measuring strains from ODS or modes was highly subject to noise and filtering effects.
3D scanning laser Doppler vibrometry (LDV) systems are well known for modal testing of articles whose excited dynamic properties are time-invariant over the duration of all scans. However, several potential test situations can arise in which the modal parameters of a given article will change over the course of a typical LDV scan. One such instance is considered in this work, in which the internal state of a thermal battery changes at different rates over its activation lifetime. These changes substantially alter its dynamic properties as a function of time. Due to the extreme external temperatures of the battery, non-contact LDV was the preferred method of response measurement. However, scanning such an object is not optimal due to the non-simultaneous nature of the scanning LDV when capturing a full set of data. Nonetheless, by carefully considering the test configuration, hardware and software setup, as well as data acquisition and processing methods it was possible to utilize a scanning LDV system to collect sufficient information to provide a measure of the time varying dynamic characteristics of the test article. This work will demonstrate the techniques used, the acquired results and discuss the technical issues encountered.