Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Modal Testing and FRF
Modal Testing and FRF
Linear System
Linear time invariant systems: properties
• Time invariance: the system response does not depend on time but only
on the input itself and system state (for dynamic systems)
Time shift
Impulse response (IR)
Generic LTI
system symbol
Impulse response (IR)
Output: convolution
between input and
system impulse
response
• ℎ # is the system impulse response
• LTI systems are completely described by their impulse responses
• The system responds to each input signal according to its impulse
response
Transfer function
• Transfer function: frequency relationship between output and input
The analytical
formulation of input Ratio between
and output is input and output
known
System
The analytical Modal testing:
formulation of input measurement
and output is issues (noise, non
unknown linearities, etc.)
From measures to FRF
• Measurements on a
discretized grid of points
on the structure
• FRFs measures are often
organized in a matrix
structure where:
§ Each row index
corresponds to a specific
measurement point
§ Each column correspond
to a specific force
application point
Degrees of Freedom and
Operating Deflection Shapes
Degrees of Freedom
Modal shape
Longitudinal (x 1: masses
direction) move in the
displacement same direction
from rest
position is
represented on
Modal shape
the y axis
2: masses
move in
opposite
direction
Degrees of Freedom and number of modes
ODS
1) Forced movement of 2 or more
points of a structure (also with no Mode Shapes
vibrating properties)
1) Only defined for vibrating structures
2) Strongly depends on the
applied force 2) Intrinsic properties of the system,
which do not depend on the applied
3) Expression of the overall force
motion of the structure (non
linearities and non stationary 3) They define a stationary behavior
(transient) elements are included)
Modal Shapes vs Operating Deflection Shapes
(ODS)
• During measurements we NEVER observe pure modal shapes, but ODSs
• Modal shapes combine together during vibration, even for sinusoidal
stimulations at one frequency
• Lightly damped structures: ODSs at resonant frequencies are very
similar to pure modal shapes.
• In order to find modal shapes we therefore need to post process the
measured ODS data
Types of tests and measures
Hammer test
• The usage of window functions can limit leakage, thus increasing the FRF
accuracy
• Nevertheless, windows tend to smooth FRF peaks, giving more flat
responses.
• Attention should be always put in the FRF interpretation
Common windows
• Input window
§ Constant value + steep descent half cosine
§ Applied on the input hammer signal
§ Standard extension: 5 – 10% of the time record length
• Exponential Window
§ Applied both to the input hammer and the output measurement
§ Standard extension: time constant is ¼ of the time record length
§ Inherently introduces damping on the FRF, but it can be compensated
during modal estimation
Accurate FRF estimation
• Actual FRFs are NEVER a simple ratio between the output and the input
• Noise can easily appear in measured data
• More accurate FRFs: estimators
§ measurement noise modeled as a unique source of noise that is
added to the input ! or output "
• Noise on the Output estimator:
Strong coupling
• At resonant frequencies all the motion information is contained:
§ in the FRF imaginary part (for acceleration or displacement measures)
§ in the FRF real part (for velocity measures)
• Procedure:
§ Consider one FRF matrix row (or column)
§ Interpolate resonant real/ imaginary peak values for all solicitation
points
• Result: modal shape during one time instant for the corresponding
resonant frequency.
• Combine all the mode shapes to obtain the overall vibrational shape.
Quadrature Picking Procedure (cont’d)
vertical
horizontal