NUST COLLEGE OF ELECTRICAL & MECHANICAL ENGINEERING

DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING

Experimental Vibration Testing

Objective
To get familiar with vibration testing tools and equipment.

Introduction to Vibration Testing

Due to the demands of high-speed operation and the use of light structures. In modern

machinery, static measurements of stress/strain properties are not sufficient. Dynamic

measurements are necessary and vibration testing has therefore found widespread use. In order

to investigate vibration in physical systems, it is necessary to excite the system at specific

frequencies and amplitudes. Engineers are particularly interested in the modal characteristics

of the system as well as forces, accelerations, velocities, displacements that a system may

experience. Resonance is potentially damaging to structural parts, while large oscillatory

motions are associated with noise and discomfort.

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NUST COLLEGE OF ELECTRICAL & MECHANICAL ENGINEERING
DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING

Figure Experimental setup

 NUST COLLEGE OF ELECTRICAL & MECHANICAL ENGINEERING
DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING

The data acquisition system is a piece of hardware where all the signal conditioning takes place

such as amplification and filtering. To excite the system electromagnetic shaker or impact

hammer is used. In the case of shaker, it can be excited by the signal produce by the software

and then this digital signal is converted to an analogue signal by the data acquisition system,

amplified by the power amplifier and then applied to the shaker. An accelerometer is used to

measure the FRFs at various locations on the testing structure. The outputs from the

accelerometer and force transducer are connected to signal conditioners which converts the

signal into voltage. Then this voltage signal is sampled and digitised by the data acquisition

system and transferred to the PC for processing.