RFDA Essential

Overview

The RFDA Essential is a mid-range material testing instrument that implements the non-destructive Impulse Excitation Technique (IET) and performs impulse excitation measurements at ambient temperature. It uses a dedicated microphone with a large frequency range to detect induced vibration signals, amplifies these signals with the RFDA System 20 and sends them to a computer for analysis to identify resonant frequencies and internal friction or damping (Q-1). The resonant frequencies are used to calculate Young's modulus (E), Shear modulus (G) and Poisson's ratio (ν) for pre-defined sample geometries in accordance with relevant standards such as ASTM E1876-22. The RFDA algorithm applies an iterative process to analyze natural frequencies and determine frequency and damping values. Environmental and data-acquisition specifications include: Temperature range: Ambient temperature (5°C to 40°C); Atmosphere: Air; Humidity specification: Maximum relative humidity 80% for temperatures up to 31°C decreasing linearly to 50% relative humidity at 40°C. Data acquisition: Integrated DAQ Board with Sampling rate: 100.000 S/s (Nyquist: 50 kHz) and Frequency Range: 10 Hz to 33 kHz (1/3 of sampling rate). Included hardware: - RFDA system 20 - Microphone (10 Hz – 33 kHz) with holder - Manual excitation devices (2x) - Semi-automatic excitation unit (5 projectiles with different mass) - Universal Wire Support (Bars, Rods, Discs, Tubes, …) - Connection cables PC included: Optional. Upgradable to HT systems: No. Software: RFDA Essential. Software Extensions (Optional): Non-Linear Behavior Toolkit; Product Inspection Toolkit. The user interface provides result logging and full access to measurement settings during measurement. Documented applications include research, materials analysis and product inspection. The instrument enables non-destructive determination of dynamic elastic properties (E, G, ν) in a single measurement at ambient temperature, supporting material testing and characterization workflows. The Non-Linear Behavior Toolkit is provided as an optional software extension to study amplitude-dependent behavior and can be used to detect defects by dividing measured signals into time or amplitude windows and plotting frequency and damping versus vibration amplitude. The Product Inspection Toolkit is an optional extension that provides a simplified user interface for production environments with product-type configurable measurement setups, go/no-go/suspect indication, batch measurements and password-protected user levels.