Behind The Scenes of Peak Acceleration Measurements

Most technical papers and reports on seakeeping tests for high speed vehicles skip over details of measurement and data processing for peak acceleration statistics. It is assumed that the reader is familiar with the methods used to obtain the test results and that all facilities make the measurements the same way. In the past few years there has been renewed interest in this area and several papers have been written on the subject (Coats, et al. 2007, Riley, et al. 2010 (a-c), 2011, Grimsley, et al. 2010, McCue et al. 2012). It is an exciting time in this field but the relatively small group of people who make the measurements and perform the analysis sometimes speak in their own language. Engineers tend to specialize in one area or another – hydrodynamics, structures, electronics, computer programming – and it may be difficult for any one person to follow all of the analysis issues discussed without a general understanding of concepts in each area. The intent of this paper is to flesh out some of the details that are usually not reported regarding what goes on before the final analysis and to provide an overview of how peak acceleration values are obtained. The information presented could be considered overly basic by electronics or computer experts however it may be of use to naval architects who are not in the field of testing but have a vested interest in the outcome of acceleration measurements.