Shock Spectrum Classification of Violent Environments that Cause Machinery Failure, #308

A series of tests was conducted to evaluate several transient motion analysis methods to determine which is the best indicator of the ability of the motion to cause failure of facilities equipment. Previous work has proven that the pseudovelocity shock spectrum should be used to evaluate violent motion severity. This experimental research is additional evidence. Six blowers were exposed to six different violent loadings, each of which could be progressively increased until the blower failed. Five blowers did indeed fail. The time histories were recorded and analyzed by several methods. These included Fourier transform magnitude, pseudo velocity and acceleration shock spectra, and peak g levels. The analysis that does the best job is the damped shock spectrum plotted with pseudovelocity as the ordinate on four coordinate paper. It shows the five failure causing environments similar, and the sixth environment weaker. This paper reviews the theoretical proofs, describes the tests, and illustrates the different ways in which the blowers failed, and discusses the data analyses.