Anderson Electronics, Inc. - Tutorial (Vibration)

Vibration
Many applications require the crystal to function in a vibrating environment. The vibrating environment may be the result to the crystal being placed near vibrating equipment or machinery or in a vehicle being driven over various road conditions. Vehicular, aircraft and space-launch environments are several of the most severe vibration environments for quartz crystal resonators,

Vibration has the potential to fracture or completely breaking the quartz wafer, damage the wafer to lead/mount interface and cause vibrational anomalies such as unwanted side-bands and a degradation in phase noise performance.

Vibration-Induced Sidebands

Sine Vibration-Induced Phase Noise

Random-Vibration-Induced Phase Noise

Crystal designs can optimize the internal wafer mounting structure to increase a resonator’s immunity to vibration.

It is also critical that the resonator be mounted in the application in a manner that minimizes the effects of vibration. The mechanical effects of vibration can be amplified due to natural mechanical resonance in the crystal and or circuit board. This amplification of the vibration can cause the g level to increase significantly with the potential to damage the resonator or induce unwanted side-bands or noise into the circuit.

Military specifications MIL-PRF-3098/H and MIL-STD-204 Method 107, TC A sets the vibration standard and test condition for quarts crystal resonators:

Delta F < 5 ppm

All frequencies: 10g, 10-500 Hz., 15 minutes per sweep cycle for 3 hrs. each axis, total test time 9 hrs.

More stringent performance requirements for vibration are obtained at higher frequencies, up to 2000 Hz. and/or higher g levels.

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