NRP-1403 (NASA RP-1403), NASA REFERENCE PUBLICATION: FORCE LIMITED VIBRATION TESTING MONOGRAPH (T.D. SCHARTON) (MAY-1997)

NRP-1403 (NASA RP-1403), NASA REFERENCE PUBLICATION: FORCE LIMITED VIBRATION TESTING MONOGRAPH (T.D. SCHARTON) (MAY-1997)., The practice of limiting the shaker force in vibration tests was instigated at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in 1990 after the mechanical failure of an aerospace component during a vibration test. Now force limiting is used in almost every major vibration test at JPL and in many vibration tests at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) and at many aerospace contractors. The basic ideas behind force limiting have been in the literature for several decades, but the piezo-electric force transducers necessary to conveniently implement force limiting have been available only in the last decade. In 1993, funding was obtained from the NASA headquarters Office of Chief Engineer to develop and document the technology needed to establish force limited vibration testing as a standard approach available to all NASA centers and aerospace contractors. This monograph is the final report on that effort and discusses the history, theory, and applications of the method in some detail. To facilitate the application of the method, a more concise description of the key aspects of the approach is presented in a complementary guidelines document, which is available separately and is also contained herein as Appendix C