Upgrade of Johnson Space Center Building 49 Shaker Lab.
Tables controls and Data Acquisition equipment.

History of Vibration lab:

The current design and equipment in operation in the Shaker lab dates back to the Lunar Apollo era (1970’s) and uses transistors and vacuum tubes. These systems were designed to test electronic and other hardware components of space flight to simulate the physical vibration that occurs during lift off and space flight. These tests were used to certify that the equipment would hold up during the rigors of space flight. The shaker tables and drivers are designed to test equipment from the smallest single component to actual Lunar Apollo assemblies. Today the system tests all equipment which can be found in a launch vehicle from laptop computers to the rocket motors.

Description of Upgrades:

The design and installation of the controls and upgrades to the Data Acquisition system required the installation of a central control. The new system allows NASA engineers to control and monitor and record test data from the shaker equipment. This upgrade required the installation of new flow meters, temperature probes, control relays and other sensors interfaced with pre-existing equipment.

The software is driven by a graphic user interface which allows the user to control all aspects of water cooling, hydraulic and voltage input from a central computer. Along with controls and data acquisition, the software is also designed to shut down the test automatically if any of the system parameters are out of specified bounds and reset the system to a safe stand-by mode.