Study on Uncertainty Factors of Head Vibration Measurements

This paper addresses uncertainty issues encountered recently in measuring head vibration using the conventional 6-axis or 9-axis bite-bar Those conventional bite-bars are shown to present insufficient information to measure a complete 6 degree-of-freedom motion of head vibration. In order to overcome such limit, a theoretical measurement model that consists of four 3-axis linear accelerometers is suggested (Theoretical backgrounds presented in this paper shall have been addressed in the international congress of ICA 2004 in this April). It is shown to enable the direct measurement of three angular acceleration components and six angular velocity-dependent nonlinear terms. In audition to the three linear acceleration terms, those nine angular motion-dependent ones are found to make it possible to evaluate the general head vibration for a given position. To examine the feasibility of the proposed method, a newly designed 12-axis bite-bar was developed. Detailed experimental results obtained using the developed 12-axis bite-bar are illustrated in the presentation of this paper, which illustrates what amount of measurement accuracy provides. But, this paper provides more detailed experimental data and extended uncertainty factors.