Response analysis of specimens excited with non-Gaussian acceleration profiles

In the field of vibration qualification testing, a growing interest is addressed in the recent years to the socalled “kurtosis control”, aimed at the implementation of acceleration input profiles having a non- Gaussian distribution. In this context, an intensive experimental campaign was carried out by the authors, leading to fatigue failure some special notched specimens subjected to steady Gaussian, steady non- Gaussian, and burst non-Gaussian acceleration input profiles. The specimen response was measured in terms of both the free end acceleration and the relative displacement across its critical section. For each test, input and output signals were compared in terms of kurtosis and other statistical quantities. The results show that only for burst non-Gaussian input profiles the response presents a non-Gaussian distribution, with the presence of significant peaks, as the input that generated it. The paper illustrates the experimental set up and tests procedure, reports the data signal processing (including the generation of the input profiles), and finally discusses the results retrieved from the tests.