Performance Evaluation of Accelerometers to 200,000 G

• Published in: Journal of applied mechanics 1998-03, Vol.65 (1), p.266-268
• Main Authors: Togami, T. C., Brown, F. A., Forrestal, M. J., Baker, W. E.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Exact sciences and technology; Fundamental areas of phenomenology (including applications); Measurement and testing methods; Measurement methods and techniques in continuum mechanics of solids; Measurements common to several branches of physics and astronomy; Metrology, measurements and laboratory procedures; Physics; Solid mechanics; Structural and continuum mechanics; Velocity, acceleration and rotation
• ISSN: 0021-8936; 1528-9036
• DOI: 10.1115/1.2789036

Togami et al. (1996) present a Hopkinson bar technique to evaluate the performance of accelerometers for peak acceleration amplitudes between 20,000 and 120,000 G. In this note, we report design improvements for our apparatus that extend performance evaluations to 200,000 G. We briefly describe our split Hopkinson bar technique to evaluate the performance of accelerometers that measure large-amplitude pulses. A nondispersive stress pulse propagates in an aluminum bar and interacts with a steel disk at the end of the bar. We measure stress at the aluminum bar-disk interface with a quartz gage and measure acceleration at the free end of the disk with an accelerometer. The rise time of the incident stress pulse in the aluminum bar is long enough and the disk length is short enough that the response of the disk can be approximated closely as rigid-body motion. We calculate acceleration of the rigid disk from the stress measurement and Newton' s Second Law. Comparisons of accelerations calculated from the quartz gage data and measured acceleration data for this study show good agreement for acceleration pulses with the peak amplitudes between 12,000 and 200,000 G. (Author)