1 Dec 2020

Vibration Survey of Room 47 with a Laser Doppler Vibrometer: Main Laboratory Basement, U.S. Army ERDC-CRREL

ABSTRACT:  Plans are underway to create an acousto-optic laboratory on the campus of the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory. For this purpose, existing space in the basement of the Main Laboratory will be renovated. Demanding measurement techniques, such as interferometry, require a sufficiently quiet vibration environment (i.e., low vibration levels). As such, characterization of existing vibration conditions is necessary to determine vibration isolation requirements so that highly sensitive measurement activities are feasible. To this end, existing vibro-acoustic conditions were briefly surveyed in Room 47, a part of the future laboratory. The survey measured ambient noise and ambient vertical floor vibrations. The ambient vibration environment was characterized according to generic velocity criteria (VC), which are one-third octave band vibration limits. At the time of the survey, the ambient vibration environment fell under a VC-A designation, where the tolerance limit is 2000 µin/s across all one-third octave bands. Under this condition, highly sensitive measurement activities are feasible on a vibration-isolated working surface. The conclusion of this report provides isolation efficiency requirements that satisfy VC-E limits (125 µin/s), which are necessary for interferometric measurements.