Certification of 200,000 g Shock Calibration Technique for Sensors

A split Hopkinson bar technique has been developed to evaluate the performance of accelerometers that measure large amplitude, up to 200,000 g, mechanical shock pulses. An evaluation of this technique has been conducted in the Mechanical Shock Laboratory at Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) for use as an accelerometer calibration technique. Results of this evaluation are presented and include a comparison with a NIST calibrated reference accelerometer. The certification of split Hopkinson flyaway technique by the SNL Primary Standards Laboratory is presented in this paper.