Traceable Calibration and Demonstration of a Portable Dynamic Force Transfer Standard

Area of Science:

• Metrology
• Mechanical Engineering
• Instrumentation

Background:

• Dynamic force transducer calibration is complex due to mechanical system dependencies.
• Existing methods often require specialized equipment and are not performed in situ.
• A need exists for a reliable dynamic force transfer standard for field calibration.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate a novel dynamic force transfer standard for SI-traceable calibration of force transducers.
• To assess the suitability of a hand-held impact hammer as a transfer standard.
• To demonstrate the application of the transfer standard for calibrating secondary transducers in situ.

Main Methods:

• SI-traceable calibration of an impact hammer using a step function force generated by a suspended mass.
• Evaluation of the transfer standard's dynamic response variance across different users.
• Calibration of a secondary force transducer using the validated transfer standard.

Main Results:

• The impact hammer demonstrated low dynamic response variance, making it a suitable transfer standard.
• The transfer standard achieved a combined standard uncertainty of ≤2.1% (k=2) up to 5 kHz.
• Transfer calibration of a secondary transducer yielded a combined standard uncertainty of <4% (k=2) up to 3 kHz.

Conclusions:

• The developed dynamic force transfer standard enables accurate, in situ calibration of force transducers.
• The impact hammer serves as a practical and reliable transfer standard for SI-traceable measurements.
• This framework simplifies force calibration by eliminating the need for SI-traceable voltage metrology instrumentation.