Dynamic Testing, Analysis, and Design Services

Although you might suspect that vibration is undermining your sensitive project, deciding what to do about it is no small task. Without the training, experience, and sophisticated equipment to analyze your set-up and environment, you may be just guessing. You could take a piecemeal approach — eliminating possible sources of vibration one by one until the problem goes away. But such guess work can take a lot of time and money — especially if the problem isn't vibration at all. Fortunately, there's an option.

Newport offers you the state-of-the-art tools and expertise to analyze vibration problems no matter how complex. To complement our staff of vibration control specialists, we've teamed with CSA Engineering in Palo Alto, California. CSA has a long history of developing innovative solutions for complex dynamic problems, whether for commercial or military projects. Our combined engineering staffs offer expertise in structural dynamics, active and passive vibration suppression, acoustics, stress analysis, numerical analysis, control theory, signal processing, computer programming, optimization, and machine design.

Extensive modal survey testing helps verify or tune large finite element models. It can also characterize a structure's dynamic properties in terms of frequency, modal damping, mode shapes, and modal mass.

Troubleshooting may involve the location of structure-borne or fluid-borne transmission paths between excitation sources and sensitive components. It can also help identify troublesome modes.

We often build custom fixturing, instrumentation, and apparatus for specialized dynamic tests, and develop specialized software and test techniques for your individual needs.

We can perform operational testing for structures and systems either on-site or in our lab. This includes measurements on structures ranging from battleship propulsion systems to disk drives.

These tests determine linear stiffness, damping and hysteresis of components too complex for analytical modeling. We use frequency-dependent models in such cases to describe the components.

Force-State Mapping

To characterize nonlinear properties of structural components — including joints, truss elements and elastomers — force-state maps provide three-dimensional plots of force versus displacement and velocity.

We perform static strength, buckling and structural integrity tests with strain-gage techniques, pressure-sensitive films and many other methods. Stress, strain and load are measured using nondestructive techniques.