RTCA DO-160 Vibration Testing For Aircraft Airborne Equipment
What is DO-160 Vibration testing?
Maintained and published by the Aeronautical Radio Technical Commissioner, or RTCA, and adopted by the US Federal Aviation Administration and the European Aviation Safety Agency since its first publication in 1975, DO-160 defines a set of minimum standard environmental test conditions (categories) and applicable test procedures for airborne equipment. The purpose of these tests is to provide a laboratory method for determining the performance characteristics of airborne equipment under environmental conditions that may be encountered during airborne operation.
What test procedures are included in DO-160?
1.Temperature and Altitude2.Temperature Variation
3.Operational Shocks and Crash Safety
4.Vibration
5.Sand and Dust
6.Salt Fog
Each part of the DO-160 is customer-specific and highly customized for the final environment of the device or rugged computer system.
RTCA DO-160 --Vibration
The DO-160 vibration test involves a series of tests designed to demonstrate that airborne equipment meets performance standards and durability requirements when subjected to specific vibration levels for installation.| DO-160 Vibration Environment Categories | ||
| * Standard Vibration Test | * Robust Vibration Testing | * High-Level, Short-Duration Shaker Test |
| Can equipment meet its functional performance requirements in a typical vibration environment encountered during regular aircraft operation? | Can equipment operate as expected while being subjected to vibration and continue working after being subjected to endurance vibration levels? | Can equipment survive a loss of performance that could hazardously affect the performance of the aircraft? |
The test model DO-160G demonstrates three main features of the device
Standard Vibration Test (Class S) : Standard vibration test is suitable for stable aircraft. The test shows that the equipment meets the requirements of working in vibration environment. Vibration environment is the environment encountered in the course of aircraft operation.
Robust Vibration Testing: Robust vibration testing determines whether the product will function satisfactorily when subjected to vibration. It also determines whether equipment can continue to operate satisfactorily after being subjected to high intensity vibrations. Together, these vibration tests demonstrate operating performance and equipment quality.
High-Level, Short-Duration Shaker Test: The high level of dynamic changes experienced by the aircraft during the abnormal period of stable vibration that occurs during the loss of engine propeller blades. The test is applied to equipment whose failure could endanger the operation of the aircraft.
Test purpose
These tests demonstrate that the equipment meets applicable equipment performance standards (including durability requirements) when subjected to vibration levels specified for proper installation.Vibration Test Requirements
The following general requirements apply to all vibration tests:a. Install the equipment under test so that its input vibration motion is parallel to one of its three main orthogonal axes, any test fixture used shall be as rigid and symmetrical as possible, and the equipment shall be connected to the fixture or shaker in the manner specified in the equipment specification. Equipment mounted on external vibration/shock isolators should be tested using isolators.
b. Where applicable, an accelerometer shall be installed on the equipment item subject to vibration to measure and record the vibration response of the equipment on the vibration axis to determine the resonance frequency and amplification factor. Where feasible, the selected location may include major structures, printed circuit boards, large components and modules.
c. The control accelerometer(s) shall be attached to the test fixture as near as practicable to the equipment mounting location for each axis of test. When more than one accelerometer is employed for test level control, the average of the accelerometer control signals for sinusoidal tests or the average of the acceleration power spectral densities (APSD's) for random tests shall be used as the test level control. For all vibration input types, spectrum or APSD plots as appropriate shall be made to demonstrate that the control levels meet the test level requirements.
d. The random vibration signal should have a Gaussian distribution, and the instantaneous vibration acceleration peaks of the control signal may be limited to three times the g rms acceleration level.
e. The accuracy of the instrument system for measuring sinusoidal acceleration shall be acceleration + 10% and frequency + 2%.
f. If the random vibration test requires more than the power capacity of the vibration test system, the test can be performed in separate frequency bands from 10 to 600 Hz and from 600 to 2000 Hz. Each frequency band shall be tested according to the specified test time.
What are the differences between DO-160 and MIL-STD-810
Typically, rugged servers are certified to a mix of DO-160, MIL-STD-461, MIL-STD-810, MIL-STD-704, and other military and industry standards, but what exactly is the difference between all of these standards
The DO-160 test program is specifically designed to evaluate the performance and durability characteristics of equipment that operates and survives in challenging or extreme aircraft environments and is primarily used in the aerospace industry.
MIL-STD-810, on the other hand, is a U.S. Department of Defense standard for testing equipment that will eventually be used by the U.S. Air Force, Army, Navy, and other branches of the U.S. military, and unlike the DO-160, MIL-STD-810 is not specifically focused on the aircraft environment.
MIL-STD-810 does include tests for the aircraft environment: low pressure (altitude) or method 500.6. This single procedure does not mean that other MIL-STD-810 tests cannot be used for aircraft equipment testing; for example, MIL-STD-810 vibration tests can be applied to aircraft equipment. Of course, there is some overlap between the two standards, but each standard also has its own unique circumstances and conditions. For example, you won't find tests for acidic atmosphere and solar radiation in the DO-160. At the same time, you won't find a test for the effects of lightning strikes in MIL-STD-810.
JOEO has its own in-house DO-160 test lab. We also work with compliance testing LABS that can accommodate additional DO-160 testing procedures.
We typically test the DO-160 internally for vibration, shock, temperature, and humidity. Typically, customers with avionics type applications or requirements request the RTCA DO-160 test, so we DO about three to four tests per year.
Some of our DO-160 tested products include, but are not limited to:
ION Rugged minicomputer
1U rugged server and processor board
5U rugged server and processor board
If you are interested in us, contact JOEO today to find out more about how we test the DO-160 temperature, humidity, shock and vibration standards, and we will highlight these test methods for you in detail.
