Method for Measuring Surface Mobility of a Finite Plate Subject to a Uniform Velocity Excitation

Surface mobility is used to describe the dynamic characteristics of the power transmission over the contact area between two connected structures. Due to the complexity of structures, it is difficult to build analytical models for various structures to calculate surface mobility theoretically. Therefore, without well established theoretical model to apply, the best way is to measure the surface mobility of each structure separately to obtain its dynamic characteristics of the power transmission. This paper proposes a method to experimentally measure the surface mobility over a two-dimensional contact area subject to a uniform velocity excitation. An experimental model of a rectangular thin plate with two opposite simply-supported edges is built up to validate the method. A brass shim is used to simulate the condition of the simply-supported edge. The results show that the method of the measurement derived is practicable and the reason causing the errors of the measurement is also investigated.