Vibration Testing

Vibration testing is the shaking of a product or package to determine its ability to survive in real world conditions. DDL performs vibration testing on a package or product to simulate one of three environments:

Watch A Vibration Testing Video

1) Transportation environment
Packages and products must be assessed to ensure that they can survive transportation via truck, air or rail.

2) Operating environment
Many products have to survive vibration in their daily working life, regardless of how they were originally transported. Examples include electronics in vehicles, construction equipment and aircraft.

3) Storage environment of sensitive products
Some sensitive products experience vibration when sitting on the floor of a building, since most buildings vibrate. External factors that cause this kind of vibration include air conditioning, other operating equipment and passing vehicles.

The procedure for vibration testing involves placing the product or package on a vibration testing table, which is driven so that the surface of the table vibrates. The most common types of vibration testing equipment are:

• Hydraulic Vibration
  Used for larger loads and lower frequency testing (1 - 500 HZ)
• Electro-dynamic Vibration
  Used for high frequency testing (20 - 10,000 HZ)

There are many types of vibration test techniques, but the two primary methods are:

1) Sinusoidal Testing
Here, the specimen is exposed to vibration at a constant or slowly changing frequency. Often used to reveal a product or package's resonant (sensitive) frequencies, it is the oldest type of vibration testing.

2) Random Testing
This test is typically used to simulate real world environments. Random testing can be used to duplicate transportation vibration, seismic vibration and operating vibration.

Many products and packages undergo vibration testing at either extremely hot or extremely cold temperatures. For example, aircraft parts would be tested at very cold temperatures, whereas under-the-hood automotive parts would be tested at a high temperature.

Commonly used industry standards for vibration testing include:

ASTM Standards
ASTM D999	Vibration testing of shipping containers
ASTM D3580	Vibration (vertical sinusoidal motion) test of products
ASTM D4728	Random Vibration testing of shipping containers
ISO Standards
ISO 2247	Vibration test at fixed low frequency
ISO 8318	Vibration tests using a sinusoidal variable frequency
ISO 9022-10	Combined sinusoidal Vibration, dry heat or cold
ISO 9022-15	Combined random vibration wide band: reproducibility medium, in dry heat or cold
ISO 9022-19	Temperature cycles combined with sinusoidal or random vibration
Other Standards
IEC 60068-2-64	Environmental Testing: Part II, methods, vibration, broad-band random
EIA-RS-186	Passive electronic component parts- Method 8- Vibration, High Frequency
JIS C0040	Environ. Tests Part II: Tests, Test Fc and Guidance: Vibration (sinusoidal)
MIL 167	Military Standard, mech. vibrations of shipboard equipment
MIL 810	Environmental Engineering Considerations and Laboratory Tests
NAVMAT P-9492	Temperature Cycling and Random Vibration

For more information on any of DDL's testing services, contact us today.