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Introduction Calibration
Piezoelectric accelerometers are widely used for vibration In order to calibrate the measurement setup a method ac-
measurements, because of their robustness and reliability, cording to ISO 16063-21 for vibration calibration by com-
which lead to stable transfer characteristics. Typical piezoe- parison to a reference transducer has been implemented with
lectric accelerometers show good linearity over wide fre- sine approximation of the magnitude and phase values ac-
quency and dynamic ranges. While the linear behavior is cording to ISO 16063-11. The magnitude of the complex
understood and documented, specifications of the nonlinear sensitivity was calculated using equation 1 and the phase of
behavior are scarce and, if present, state generally low dis- the complex sensitivity using equation 2. Input values were
tortions. calculated using the accurate sine approximation method.
=
Since the limitations of the transducer have to be considered
in the analysis of the measured vibrations, the nonlinear
(1)
behavior of a typical piezoelectric accelerometer was further
investigated. For the measurements a setup for vibration SSensor , SReference Magnitude of the complex sensitivity of
calibration by comparison to a reference transducer, accord- the transducer
ing to ISO 16063, was enhanced by laser vibrometry, to XSensor , XReference Magnitude of the transducer output
resolve limitations of the vibration exciter. In order to calcu-
=
+
late the vibration amplitudes, methods for vibration calibra-
tion by comparison to a reference transducer, and primary
(2)
vibration calibration by laser interferometry, from ISO
16063, were combined. Since current standards for vibration Sensor-Reference Phase shift between the sensor to be cali-
transducers do not regard nonlinear behavior, further analy- brated and the Reference transducer
sis has been performed according to IEC 60268 for sound Sensor , Reference Phase of the complex sensitivity of the
system equipment. In the frequency range, limited by the transducer
setup, distortions, added to the measurements by the piezoe-
lectric accelerometer, were typically below 0.5 %, which The results of the sensor calibration illustrated in Figure 2
leads to the conclusion that these can be neglected for typical were validated by comparison to the values of the accredited
applications. calibration system which has been extended for the total
harmonic distortion measurements. Of course also the laser
Measurement Setup vibrometer was calibrated accordingly, in order to have
reliable measurement values for further analysis.
An existing and accredited system for secondary calibration
of accelerometers by comparison to a reference transducer
was extended by a laser vibrometer and additional data re- 15
m/s2
harmonic distortions.
SS ensor /
10
Measurement
frontend
5
0
S ensor / deg
-1
Conditioning
amplifier
-2
Laser Sensor
Computer Reference -3
vibrometer 0.02 0.05 0.1 0.2 0.5 1 2 5 10
Frequency / kHz
50 of 6 m/s2.
harmonics reach the resonance frequency of the accelerome-
LDV