New Technique for Impact Calibration of Wide-Range Triaxial Force Transducer Using Hopkinson Bar

At the current stage, there is an urgent need for new techniques to dynamically calibrate advanced wide-range (up to 10(4) N~10(5) N) triaxial force transducers. Based on this background, this paper proposes a novel impact calibration method, specifically for the triaxial force transducer, with a wide range and high-frequency response. In this method, the Hopkinson bar, which is typically used to test the dynamic mechanical properties of materials, was used as a generator to generate reference input force for the transducer. In addition, unlike conventional methods, the transverse sensitivities of the transducer were given necessary importance in the proposed method. The calibration result of the triaxial force transducer was expressed in a sensitivity matrix, containing three main sensitivity coefficients and six transverse sensitivity coefficients. The least squares method (LSM) was used to fit the sensitivity matrix linearly. Calibration experiments were performed on a typical triaxial force transducer. Several key issues, involving the validity and the test range, of the method were further investigated numerically. The feasibility and validity of the method were eventually confirmed. The test range of the method can be up to 10(6) N.