National foreword

This British Standard is the UK implementation of EN IEC 60068‑2‑86:2024. It is identical to IEC 60068‑2‑86:2024.

The UK participation in its preparation was entrusted to Technical Committee GEL/104, Environmental conditions, classification and testing.

A list of organizations represented on this committee can be obtained on request to its committee manager.

Contractual and legal considerations

This publication has been prepared in good faith, however no representation, warranty, assurance or undertaking (express or implied) is or will be made, and no responsibility or liability is or will be accepted by BSI in relation to the adequacy, accuracy, completeness or reasonableness of this publication. All and any such responsibility and liability is expressly disclaimed to the full extent permitted by the law.

This publication is provided as is, and is to be used at the recipient’s own risk.

The recipient is advised to consider seeking professional guidance with respect to its use of this publication.

This publication is not intended to constitute a contract. Users are responsible for its correct application.

Compliance with a British Standard cannot confer immunity from legal obligations.

This British Standard was published under the authority of the Standards Policy and Strategy Committee on 31 March 2024.

FOREWORD

The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) is a worldwide organization for standardization comprising all national electrotechnical committees (IEC National Committees). The object of IEC is to promote international co-operation on all questions concerning standardization in the electrical and electronic fields. To this end and in addition to other activities, IEC publishes International Standards, Technical Specifications, Technical Reports, Publicly Available Specifications (PAS) and Guides (hereafter referred to as “IEC Publication(s)”). Their preparation is entrusted to technical committees; any IEC National Committee interested in the subject dealt with may participate in this preparatory work. International, governmental and non-governmental organizations liaising with the IEC also participate in this preparation. IEC collaborates closely with the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) in accordance with conditions determined by agreement between the two organizations.
The formal decisions or agreements of IEC on technical matters express, as nearly as possible, an international consensus of opinion on the relevant subjects since each technical committee has representation from all interested IEC National Committees.
IEC Publications have the form of recommendations for international use and are accepted by IEC National Committees in that sense. While all reasonable efforts are made to ensure that the technical content of IEC Publications is accurate, IEC cannot be held responsible for the way in which they are used or for any misinterpretation by any end user.
In order to promote international uniformity, IEC National Committees undertake to apply IEC Publications transparently to the maximum extent possible in their national and regional publications. Any divergence between any IEC Publication and the corresponding national or regional publication shall be clearly indicated in the latter.
IEC itself does not provide any attestation of conformity. Independent certification bodies provide conformity assessment services and, in some areas, access to IEC marks of conformity. IEC is not responsible for any services carried out by independent certification bodies.
All users should ensure that they have the latest edition of this publication.
No liability shall attach to IEC or its directors, employees, servants or agents including individual experts and members of its technical committees and IEC National Committees for any personal injury, property damage or other damage of any nature whatsoever, whether direct or indirect, or for costs (including legal fees) and expenses arising out of the publication, use of, or reliance upon, this IEC Publication or any other IEC Publications.
Attention is drawn to the Normative references cited in this publication. Use of the referenced publications is indispensable for the correct application of this publication.
IEC draws attention to the possibility that the implementation of this document may involve the use of (a) patent(s). IEC takes no position concerning the evidence, validity or applicability of any claimed patent rights in respect thereof. As of the date of publication of this document, IEC had not received notice of (a) patent(s), which may be required to implement this document. However, implementers are cautioned that this may not represent the latest information, which may be obtained from the patent database available at https://patents.iec.ch. IEC shall not be held responsible for identifying any or all such patent rights.

IEC 60068‑2‑86 has been prepared by IEC technical committee 104: Environmental conditions, classification and methods of test. It is an International Standard.

The text of this International Standard is based on the following documents:

Full information on the voting for its approval can be found in the report on voting indicated in the above table.

The language used for the development of this International Standard is English.

This document was drafted in accordance with ISO/IEC Directives, Part 2, and developed in accordance with ISO/IEC Directives, Part 1 and ISO/IEC Directives, IEC Supplement, available at www.iec.ch/members_experts/refdocs. The main document types developed by IEC are described in greater detail at www.iec.ch/publications.

A list of all parts in the IEC 60068 series, published under the general title Environmental testing, can be found on the IEC website.

The committee has decided that the contents of this document will remain unchanged until the stability date indicated on the IEC website under webstore.iec.ch in the data related to the specific document. At this date, the document will be

reconfirmed,
withdrawn, or
revised.

This European Standard was approved by CENELEC on 21 March 2024. CENELEC members are bound to comply with the CEN/CENELEC Internal Regulations which stipulate the conditions for giving this European Standard the status of a national standard without any alteration.

Up-to-date lists and bibliographical references concerning such national standards may be obtained on application to the CEN-CENELEC Management Centre or to any CENELEC member.

This European Standard exists in three official versions (English, French, German). A version in any other language made by translation under the responsibility of a CENELEC member into its own language and notified to the CEN-CENELEC Management Centre has the same status as the official versions.

CENELEC members are the national electrotechnical committees of Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Republic of North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Türkiye and United Kingdom.

European foreword

The text of document 104/1035/FDIS, future edition 1 of IEC 60068‑2‑86, prepared by IEC/TC 104 "Environmental conditions, classification and methods of test" was submitted to the IEC-CENELEC parallel vote and approved by CENELEC as EN IEC 60068‑2‑86:2024.

The following dates are fixed:

Attention is drawn to the possibility that some of the elements of this document may be the subject of patent rights. CENELEC shall not be held responsible for identifying any or all such patent rights.

Any feedback and questions on this document should be directed to the users’ national committee. A complete listing of these bodies can be found on the CENELEC website.

Endorsement notice

The text of the International Standard IEC 60068‑2‑86:2024 was approved by CENELEC as a European Standard without any modification.

In the official version, for Bibliography, the following notes have to be added for the standard indicated:

1 Scope

This document provides a test procedure for use with multi-exciter and multi-axis vibration test systems. The vibration test is intended for general application to components, equipment, and other products, hereinafter referred to as "specimens", subjected to dynamic environments that could arise during an equipment life cycle. Although this document is mainly intended for vibration testing, the procedure is also applied to certain types of shock and transient tests.

The test procedure set out in this document is applicable where a specimen is required to demonstrate its adequacy to resist specified vibration, shock and transient conditions, without unacceptable degradation of functional or structural performance. The test procedure has significant similarity to test procedures of other IEC 60068‑2 documents and encompasses the same range of vibration and shock excitation types.

This document is applicable to specimens subjected to vibration, shock and transient conditions resulting from transportation and/or operational environments, for example in aircraft, space vehicles and land vehicles. It is primarily intended for unpackaged specimens. It is applicable to specimens in their transportation container when the latter are considered as part of the specimen itself.

The test method and associated techniques addressed within this document are primarily intended for use with multiple electrodynamic or servo-hydraulic vibration generators along with an associated computer-based digital control system to control of the specimen excitations.

This document encompasses two testing approaches, commonly referred to as multi-exciter single-axis (MESA), and multi-exciter multi-axis (MEMA). These are:

Utilising fixed base shakers either in a single axis or a selected combination of fixed X, Y, Z configurations, also allowing for rotations dependent upon fixture coupling design.
Utilising multiple shakers attached directly to the specimen via flexible couplings or similar methods. Here the shakers are attached at any point and in any direction on the specimen. This approach is quite similar to that used for modal testing, but using environmental test severities.

It is emphasised that MESA and MEMA testing currently requires a high degree of engineering judgement and relevant experience, and both test specifier and tester are fully aware of this fact. Generally, MESA and MEMA testing requires greater resources to set up an appropriate test, but potentially provides a more accurate outcome.

For the purpose of this document, the creator of the relevant testing specification, the test specifier, is expected to select the procedure and the values of severity appropriate to the specimen and its use. Precursor testing is included within the procedure of this document, as an option, to permit the test specifier to establish the practicality of the test specification and severities with the specimen. A separate specimen is usually provisioned for such precursor testing.

The existing single axis, single vibrator test procedures within the IEC 60068‑2 series can be used with a wide range of different excitations, such as broad band random, random on random, sine on random, swept sine, shock, and long-time history replication. Theoretically these different forms of excitations, can also be applied using multi-axis and multi-exciter methods. However, suitable techniques and commercially available test control software, for some of these types of testing, are not necessarily currently commonly available. For this reason, the procedure of this document is currently primarily intended for broad band random and time history replication as facilities to undertake these types of tests are commonly available. With that said, the procedure of this document may be adapted, by the user, for other forms of excitation and advice is provided.

Traditionally, vibration, shock and transient test severities are specified using acceleration as the control parameter. However, this is not an essential pre-requisite of the procedure within this document. For the purpose of this document, vibration, shock and transient test severities are specified by the user and may be in the form of acceleration, velocity, displacement, or force. The need to include different control parameters within this document arises because there is a greater likelihood when using multi-exciter testing to specify mixed parameters for control purposes. In which case the vibration, shock and transient waveforms applied to the specimen will be controlled based upon the feedback from transducers measuring the appropriate parameter.

Although primarily intended for electrotechnical specimens, this document is not restricted to them and may be used in other fields where desired.

2 Normative references

3 Terms and definitions

4 Background

4.1 General

4.2 Multi-axis and/or multi-exciter testing to achieve an improved distribution of dynamic responses

4.3 Multi-exciter testing for large equipment

4.4 Multi-axis testing for reliability growth

4.5 Multi-axis testing to reduce test durations

5 Test apparatus and control strategy

6 Test severities and tolerances

6.1 Test severities

6.2 Tolerances

6.3 Excitations outside the specified test frequency range

6.4 Cross-axis motions

7 Mounting of specimen and installation of measurement systems

8 Precursor testing

9 Vibration response investigation

10 Pre-conditioning

11 Initial measurement and functional performance test

12 Low level excitation for equalisation prior to testing

13 Testing

14 Intermediate measurement and functional performance

15 Recovery

16 Final measurement and functional performance and vibration response investigation

17 Test verification

18 Information to be specified in the relevant specification

19 Information to be given in the test report

Bibliography

BS EN IEC 60068-2-86:2024

Environmental testing - Tests. Test Fx: Vibration. Multi-exciter and multi-axis method

Current

Published:

31 Mar 2024