Development of a test bench for vibratory fatigue experiments of a cantilever beam with an electrodynamic shaker

Abstract

When fatigue tests are carried out using a shaker, dynamic phenomena often appear and lead to a non-linear behaviour in the experiment. In this paper, the dynamic response of the specimen is studied in order to evaluate the impact on the results. The experiment consists in a notched beam fixed on the armature of an electro-dynamic shaker. The transfer function between the center of the armature and the tip of the beam is obtained with a swept sine near the first resonance frequency of the specimen. The drive is a constant acceleration amplitude. An evolution in the transfer function of the beam is observed when the drive is modified: the resonance frequency decreases and the damping increases. This non-linearity is investigated by studying the movement of the shaker, the fixture and the beam. The results show that the beam close to its resonance disrupt the imposed movement. An experimental setup correcting those defects is proposed.