Practical considerations for Force Limited Vibration Testing

Space payloads are tested on the ground to ensure they are mission ready after launch. Conventional vibration testing using response accelerometers and hard mounting to a shaker can overtest the payload resulting in damage or destruction of expensive technological or scientific equipment.

That is why nowadays FLVT (Force Limited Vibration Testing) is often performed on Space payloads. By automatically notching the acceleration at a test item's resonances, by measuring and limiting the reaction force between the test item and the shaker table, overtesting risks and costly damages can be eliminated with FLVT.