Experimental Round Robin for Predicting Electronic Component Response from High-G Loads

Abstract

The Air Force Research Laboratory led an experimental Round Robin with members of the Department of Defense and Department of Energy to validate capabilities to predict the response of electrical assemblies due to mechanical shock. Specifically, high-g shock that has peak accelerations in the 10,000–20,000 g range with durations of 0.1–0.5 ms. These accelerations were generated through the use of a Very High-G machine and a MTS Drop Tower. The test article contained an array of accelerometers placed on each of the four printed circuit boards within the unit. Input data was collected for the computational performers by mounting accelerometers to the top and bottom of a test fixture while simultaneously capturing the response of the item under test inside of the fixture. The input data was provided to the different performers, then the performers’ prediction results of the test article's accelerometer data were compared to the experimental data. This paper will present the experimental techniques that were utilized for the MTS Drop Tower series, the input data, and a discussion of the evaluation metrics used for the comparison of the models to the experimental data.