A New Multi-shaker System Development For Testing Launch Vehicle Subassemblies

Abstract

One of the major challenges in multi (dual)-shaker vibration testing of large launch vehicle subassemblies is to maintain phase and amplitude of dual shakers in a synchronous manner. Failing to maintain synchronous nature leads to catastrophic damage to the launch vehicle subassemblies as well as shaker systems. During the qualification and acceptance vibration testing of advanced launch vehicle subassemblies which are huge in size, the prime challenge faced in attaining synchronous phase and amplitude of the dual shakers with analog multi-shaker systems has been briefly discussed. From this basis, subsequently, a new digital multi-shaker system has been realized with enhanced features, viz., defining the frequency bands for correction, automatic correction of the deviations in phase and amplitude of the dual shakers, configuring the safety threshold limits for phase and amplitude deviations to prevent asynchronous movement compared to the existing analog system.