MECHANICAL SHOCK TESTING

The way a component endures a shock event, whether on its way to or under control of the end user, can be understood through mechanical shock testing, package design testing, transportation and storage testing, impact and drop testing. Ensuring your product design and packaging can withstand anticipated forces gives you knowledge to help you avoid early failures of your product.

Mechanical Shock Testing

Mechanical shock testing simulates the forces and environments that a unit under test is exposed to during handling, shipment and/or daily use. Equipment utilized for testing includes electrical, servo-hydraulic systems and mechanical shock machines (for traditional shock testing), impact testers or drop testers.

Three elements that define the profiles for traditional shock testing are:

• Shape - there are several variations of standard wave forms such as Half-Sine, Sawtooth, Triangular and Rectangular formations and SRS
• Amplitude - which is commonly expressed in g's (the force of gravity is 1 g)
• Pulse Width - the time between start and end of the pulse. Commonly expressed in milliseconds (ms)

Impact and Drop Testing aids in determining how a product/packaging resists a determined velocity loading or impact with a surface. Impact testing is performed using pendulum style impact testers and incline impacting equipment. Drop testing utilizes hand drops, quick release hook drops and drop test machines.