Unit 4 Vibrationdata

Random Vibration

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Random Vibration Examples
Vibrationdata

 Turbulent airflow passing over an aircraft wing

 Oncoming turbulent wind against a building

 Rocket vehicle liftoff acoustics

 Earthquake excitation of a building

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Random Vibration Characteristics
Vibrationdata

One common characteristic of these examples is that the motion varies randomly with
time. Thus, the amplitude cannot be expressed in terms of a "deterministic"
mathematical function.

Dave Steinberg wrote:

The most obvious characteristic of random vibration is that it is

nonperiodic. A knowledge of the past history of random motion is
adequate to predict the probability of occurrence of various acceleration
and displacement magnitudes, but it is not sufficient to predict the precise
magnitude at a specific instant.

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Optics Analogy
Vibrationdata

 Sinusoidal vibration is like a laser beam

 Random vibration is like “white light”

 White light passed through a prism produces a

spectrum of colors

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Music Analogy
Vibrationdata

 Playing a single piano key produces sinusoidal

vibration (fundamental + harmonics)

 Playing all 88 piano keys at once produces a

signal which approximates random vibration

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Types of Random Vibration
Vibrationdata
 Random vibration can be broadband or narrow band

 Random vibration can be stationary or nonstationary

 Stationary random vibration is where the key statistical parameters remain

constant with each consecutive time segment

 Parameters include: mean, standard deviation, histogram, power spectral

density, etc.

 Shaker table tests can be controlled to be stationary for the test duration

 Measured data is usually nonstationary

 White noise and pink noise are two special cases of random vibration

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 White Noise
Vibrationdata
 White noise and pink noise are two special cases
of random vibration

 White noise is a random signal which has a

constant power spectrum for a constant
frequency bandwidth

 It is thus analogous to white light, which is

composed of a continuous spectrum of colors

Commercial white noise  Static noise over a non-operating TV or radio

generator designed to produce station channel tends to be white noise
soothing random noise which
masks household noise as a
sleep aid.

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 Pink Noise
Vibrationdata
 Pink noise is a random signal which has a constant
power spectrum for each octave band

 This noise is called pink because the low

frequency or “red” end of the spectrum is
emphasized

 Pink noise is used in acoustics to measure the

frequency response of an audio system in a
Waterfalls and oceans waves particular room
may generate pink noise
 It can thus be used to calibrate an analog graphic
equalizer

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 Sample Random Time History, Synthesized Vibrationdata
WHITE NOISE

4
mean =0
3
std dev =1
2
Sample rate =
1 20K samples/sec
ACCEL (G)

0
Band-limited to 2 KHz via
-1
lowpass filtering
-2

-3 Stationary
-4

-5
0 2 4 6 8 10

TIME (SEC)

Synthesize time history with Matlab GUI script: vibrationdata.m

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Sample Random Time History, Close-up View Vibrationdata

WHITE NOISE

1
ACCEL (G)

-1

-2

-3

-4

-5
2.00 2.02 2.04 2.06 2.08 2.10

TIME (SEC)

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 Random Time History, Standard Deviation Vibrationdata

WHITE NOISE

5

4
Peak Absolute = 4.5 G

3

2
Std dev = 1 G
1
ACCEL (G)

0 Crest Factor
-1 = (Peak Absolute / Std dev)
-2 = (4.5 G/ 1 G)
-3 = 4.5
-4

-5
0 2 4 6 8 10

TIME (SEC)

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Histogram Comparison Vibrationdata

Sine Vibration has bathtub shaped histogram

 Sine vibration tends to linger at its extreme values

Random Vibration has a bell-shaped curve histogram

 Random vibration tends to dwell near zero

Thus, there is no real way to directly compare sine and random vibration.
But we can “sort of” make this comparison indirectly by taking a rainflow cycle count of
the response of a system to each time history.
Rainflow fatigue will be covered in future units.

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Random Time History, Histogram Vibrationdata

Histogram of white noise

instantaneous amplitudes
has a normal distribution.

The amplitude is expressed

in bins with unit of G.

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Statistics of Sample Time History Vibrationdata

Parameter Value Consider limits: -4.49 to 4.49

Duration 10 sec
Normal distribution
Sample Rate 20K sps
Samples 200K Probability within limits
0.99999288
Mean 0
Std Dev 1 Probability of exceeding limits
7.1223174e-06
RMS 1
Skewness 0 7.1223174e-06 * 200000 points = 1.4
Kurtosis 3.0
Rounding to nearest integer . . .
Maximum 4.3
Minimum -4.5 One point was expected to exceed 4.5 in terms of
absolute value.
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RMS and Standard Deviation Vibrationdata

 = standard deviation

RMS = root-mean-square

[ RMS ] 2 = [  ] 2 + [ mean ]2

RMS =  assuming zero mean

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Peak and RMS values Vibrationdata

 Pure sine vibration has a peak value that is 2 times its RMS
value

 Random vibration has no fixed ratio between its peak and RMS
values

 Again, the ratio between the absolute peak and RMS values in
the previous example is

4.5 G / 1 G = 4.5

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Statistical Formulas Vibrationdata

n n
 Mean = 1
 Yi  Skewness =  Yi  3
n
i 1 i 1
n 3

1 n n
 Variance =
n
 Yi  2  Kurtosis =  Yi  4
i 1 i 1
n 4
 Standard Deviation is the square root
of the variance

where Yi is each instantaneous amplitude, n is the total number of points,

 is the mean,  is the standard deviation
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Statistics of Sample Time History
Vibrationdata

 Random vibration is often considered to have a 3 peak for design purposes

 Need to differentiate between input and response levels
 Response is more important for design purposes, fatigue analysis, etc.
 Both input and response can have peaks > 3 even for stationary vibration

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Probability Values for Random Signal
Vibrationdata

Normal Distribution, Instantaneous Amplitude

Statement Probability Ratio Percent

- < x < + 0.6827 68.27%

-2 < x < +2 0.9545 95.45%

-3 < x < +3 0.9973 99.73%

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More Probability
Vibrationdata

Normal Distribution, Instantaneous Amplitude

Statement Probability Ratio Percent

|x|> 0.3173 31.73%
| x | > 2 0.0455 4.55%
| x | > 3 0.0027 0.27%

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SDOF Response to White Noise Vibrationdata

The equation of motion was previously derived in Webinar 2.

Apply the white noise base input from the previous example as a base
input to an SDOF system (fn=600 Hz, Q=10).

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Solving the Equation of Motion Vibrationdata

A convolution integral is used for the case where the base input acceleration is
arbitrary.

The convolution integral is numerically inefficient to solve in its equivalent digital-

series form.

Instead, use…

Smallwood, ramp invariant, digital recursive filtering relationship!

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SDOF Response Vibrationdata

mean =0
std dev =2.16 G
Peak Absolute = 9.18 G

Crest Factor
= 9.18 G / 2.16 G
= 4.25

The theoretical Crest Factor from

the Rayleigh Distribution is 4.31

Rice Characteristic Frequency

= 595 Hz

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SDOF Response, Close-up View
Vibrationdata

SDOF system tends to vibrate at its natural frequency. 60 peaks / 0.1 sec = 600 Hz.
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Histogram of SDOF Response Vibrationdata

The response time history is

narrowband random.

The histogram has a normal

distribution.

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Histogram of SDOF Response Peaks Vibrationdata

The histogram of the absolute

response peaks has a Rayleigh
distribution.

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 Rayleigh Distribution
Vibrationdata
 Consider a lightly damped, single-degree-of-freedom system subjected to
broadband random excitation
 The system will tend to behave as a bandpass filter
 The bandpass filter center frequency will occur at or near the system’s natural
frequency.
 The system response will thus tend to be narrowband random. The
probability distribution for its instantaneous values will tend to follow a
Normal distribution, which the same distribution corresponding to a
broadband random signal
 The absolute values of the system’s response peaks, however, will have a
Rayleigh distribution

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Rayleigh Distribution
Vibrationdata
RAYLEIGH DISTRIBUTION FOR  = 1

0.7

0.6

0.5

0.4
p(A)

0.3

0.2

0.1

0
0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0

A
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Rayleigh Probability Table
Vibrationdata
Rayleigh Distribution Probability

 Prob [ A >  ]
0.5 88.25 %
1.0 60.65 %
1.5 32.47 %
2.0 13.53 %
2.5 4.39 %
3.0 1.11 %
3.5 0.22 %
4.0 0.034 %

Thus, 1.11 % of the peaks will be above 3 sigma for a signal whose
peaks follow the Rayleigh distribution.

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Rayleigh Peak Response Formula Vibrationdata
Consider a single-degree-of-freedom system with the index n.
The maximum response can be estimated by the following equations.

cn  2 ln fn T 

0.5772
Cn  cn 
cn

Maximum Peak  Cn n

fn is the natural frequency

T is the duration
ln is the natural logarithm function
n is the standard deviation of the oscillator response

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Unit 4 Exercise 1
Vibrationdata

Consider an avionics component. It is powered and monitored during a bench

test. It passes this "functional test."

Nevertheless, it may have some latent defects such as bad solder joints or bad
parts. A decision is made to subject the component to a base excitation test on a
shaker table to check for these defects. Which would be a more effective test:
sine sweep or random vibration? Why?

Reference: NAVMAT P9492, Section 3.1

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Unit 4 Exercise 2
Vibrationdata
Repeat the pervious examples on your own. Use the vibrationdata.m GUI script.

Generate white noise

vibrationdata > Miscellaneous Functions > Generate Signal > white noise

Statistics
vibrationdata > Signal Analysis Functions > Statistics

Find probability from Normal distribution curve

vibrationdata > Miscellaneous Functions > Statistical Distributions > Normal

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Unit 4 Exercise 2 (cont)
Vibrationdata

SDOF Response
vibrationdata > Signal Analysis Functions > SDOF Response to Base Input

Estimated Peak Response from Rayleigh distribution

vibrationdata > Miscellaneous Functions > SDOF Response: Peak Sigma

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