Aspects of the Acoustic Testing of an Electronic System: Acoustic Versus Vibration Testing

In this paper, the vibratory responses excited in an electronic device during a vibration test and an acoustic test are compared. It was found that the responses differ significantly for items mounted on vibration isolators. Under certain circumstances (stiff mounting of the elements in the device and for a certain vibration axis), a higher similarity can be noted between the vibration and acoustic tests. Due to the lack of excitation above 2000 Hz during the vibration testing, failures caused by excitation in this range are not detected, which is significant for small components. The higher responses in the low frequency range during the vibration test can induce unrealistic failures. Application of the vibration test separately for individual axes as opposed to the distributed loading applied during the acoustic test can also result in undetected failures.