A preliminary uncertainty analysis of acceleration and displacement measurements on a novel WBV platform for biologic response studies

Abstract

Over the last decade, many studies have been conducted on the effects of mechanical vibration on the physical hormonal and neuromuscular responses of muscles: in some works the growth hormone response showed a dependence on the acceleration provided by Whole Body Vibration (WBV) platforms with respect to subjects responsiveness. Therefore the accuracy of acceleration measurements related to the excitation system is important and should be assessed. To this aim a preliminary study on the identification and evaluation of the measurement uncertainty sources in the measurement chain of a novel WBV platform developed by the Authors is here proposed. After the main measurement error sources have been identified, a Monte Carlo simulation Method has been implemented to obtain the uncertainty in accelerations and displacements provided by the WBV platform. Since main causes of uncertainty has been identified in the accelerometer sensitivity, its mounting and the data acquisition processing, Results of the test showed a relative uncertainty of about ±4% for acceleration and displacement measurements for frequencies between 20Hz and 60Hz.