Extending the life of a V964 electrodynamic shaker for ESA

The European Space Agency (ESA) is always striving to stay at the very forefront of space mission and launch technology.

But doing so means its testing requirements are constantly evolving; new technology and approaches mean new forms of tests, under new conditions, with new requirements for precision.

At the same time, ESA has a duty to protect the well-being of its people – which makes absolute reliability essential. As a result, the agency has a policy of preventatively replacing or refurbishing facility after it reaches the end of life (EOL) stage. Doing so allows ESA to maintain extremely high levels of reliability in its space test facilities.

It was a combination of these requirements that led ESA to explore an upgrade for its HBK V964 water-cooled electrodynamic shaker.

Vibration testing is crucial for ensuring that every component, subsystem, and system in a piece of equipment can survive the intense vibrations of launch and space exploration.

This form of testing is used in a wide range of applications, including:

• Launch simulation, modelling the impact of intense vibrations that occur during takeoff for space vehicles.
• Qualification testing to meet regulatory standards for reliability of hardware in harsh environments.
• Flight acceptance testing (FAT), an aspect of final quality checks which ensures that space vehicles and their individual components meet necessary performance criteria.
• Design validation for analytical models and simulations, ensuring that the spacecraft’s structural and functional design exhibits the behaviours that are expected under a variety of loads.

This particular shaker’s amplifier had reached the end of its 20-year lifespan, having been used for thousands of hours.

Equally, new forms of space technology brought with them a new demand for testing the vibration of components and equipment under much higher g-levels than were previously required. To get accurate results from these tests, ESA needed a shaker that could handle the strain – and still deliver results that its engineers could rely on completely.

For both of these reasons, ESA concluded that its shaker needed an upgrade, so that it could continue gathering reliable, accurate, and complete test data.

But this task wouldn’t be completely straightforward. The V964 shaker, while still powerful, was more than 40 years old, which would make finding a compatible amplifier difficult.

ESA needed help finding a product that would meet its requirements for compatibility, robustness, and precision. So the team reached out to ENMO – our trusted partner and provider of HBK’s measurement solutions in the Benelux region – for support.

ENMO’s initial assessment showed that ESA had two options.

First, ESA could choose to upgrade to the next evolution of the V964 shaker in HBK’s product line: the V984 water-cooled shaker, in combination with a new slip table.

The second solution was to retrofit the existing shaker with a new power amplifier, instead of replacing the entire system. This would allow ESA to expand its range of testing conditions, testing equipment under significantly higher vibration g-levels, while reducing its overall spend.

Like most space agencies, ESA needed to carefully control its timelines and budgets.

So, instead of just replacing the shaker, ENMO took some time to explore other routes, working with ESA team to understand their challenges, limitations and technical setup in detail.

This thorough investigation revealed an alternative way to improve the shaker’s performance while reducing costs: retrofitting the existing V964 shaker with a brand new DPA 130/210K amplifier.

This digitally-controlled amplifier is designed to supply the V964 shaker with the strong, consistent signal it needs to perform optimally – even under high levels of vibration.

Featuring a low distortion and wide bandwidth (20 Hz to 3 kHz at –3 dB and with a signal-to-noise ratio better than –68 dB), the amplifier is also highly efficient. It has a class D rating, and is able to deliver maximum power with minimum energy waste – meaning ESA can reduce running costs even further, saving budget for other value-adding tasks.

At every stage of the implementation, ENMO’s service engineers were there to offer support, ensuring that the upgrade could be completed rapidly with minimal disruption.

The new amplifier – and the shaker itself – have delivered outstanding performance since the upgrade.

“The quality of the product and workmanship of the installation is very satisfactory, ensuring very reliable and faultless operation of the power amplifier since a year and a half,” said a representative from ESA.

Making this upgrade allows ESA to test equipment under 25% higher vibration g-levels, 11% of which would be directly as a result of the new power amplifier.

Upgrading the amplifier has also future-proofed ESA’s shaker. HBK’s wide range of compatible products will make it easy for engineers to replace components or entire systems easily when they reach the end of their life. And, when new testing techniques and requirements arise, we’ll always be on hand to help ESA embrace the latest innovations and find the perfect solution.

ESA’s test engineers now have a more capable, future-ready shaker system – and they never had to navigate the cost and complexity of a full replacement.

By retrofitting their existing HBK V964 shaker with the advanced DPA 130/210K amplifier, they’ve extended the life of critical equipment, too – demonstrating the power and flexibility of an expert retrofit.

And when ESA is ready for its next upgrade, ENMO  will be there to help with expert support, precision-engineered HBK components, and a track record of reliable results.

Want to find out how we can support your test lab? Contact our team here.