Systems approach to measuring short-duration acceleration transients

It is common for failures to occur when attempting to acquire acceleration structural response measurements during crash, impact, and pyrotechnic testing. The structural response of a mechanical system to severe transient loading is commonly measured by accelerometers which are less than ideal. In particular, their amplitude-frequency response has one or more resonant peaks so that the output of the accelerometer may not be an exact replica of the input if the transient input stimulus contains frequencies near these resonant peaks, signal distortion, over-ranging of signal conditioning electronics, or even failure of the sensing element may occur. These and other problems have spurred the development of a new acceleration-measuring system which incorporates the following features; Transduction Element; Connectors; Mounting; Electronics; and Transducer Resonance.