Enhanced ground-based vibration testing for aerodynamic environments

Typical methods of replicating aerodynamic environments in the laboratory are generally poor. A structure which flies “freely” in its normal operating environment, excited over its entire external surface by aerodynamic forces and in all directions simultaneously, is then subjected to a vibration test in the laboratory whilst rigidly attached to a high impedance shaker and excited by forces applied through a few attachment points and in one direction only. The two environments could hardly be more different. The majority of vibration testing is carried out at commercial establishments and it is understandable that little has been published which demonstrates the limitations with the status quo. The primary objective of this research is to do just that with a view to identifying significant improvements in vibration testing in light of modern technology. In this paper, case studies are presented which highlight some of the limitations with typical vibration tests showing that they can lead to significant overtests, sometimes by many orders of magnitude, with the level of overtest varying considerably across a wide range of frequencies. This research shows that substantial benefits can be gained by “freely” suspending the structure in the laboratory and exciting it with a relatively small number of electrodynamic shakers using Multi-Input–Multi-Output (MIMO) control technology. The shaker configuration can be designed to excite the modes within the bandwidth utilising the inherent amplification of the resonances to achieve the desired response levels. This free-free MIMO vibration test approach is shown to result in substantial benefits that include extremely good replication of the aerodynamic environment and significant savings in time as all axes are excited simultaneously instead of the sequential X, Y and Z testing required with traditional vibration tests. In addition, substantial cost savings can be achieved by replacing some expensive large shaker systems with a few relatively small shaker systems.