ISO 20270:2019 specifies a method where a vibrating component (a source of structure-borne sound or vibration) is attached to a passive structure (or receiver) and is the cause of vibration in, or structure-borne sound radiation from, the assembly. Examples are pumps installed in ships, servo motors in vehicles or machines and plant in buildings. Almost any vibrating component can be considered as a source in this context.

Due to the need to measure vibration at all contact degrees of freedom (DOFs) (connections between the source and receiver), this document can only be applied to assemblies for which such measurement is possible.

This document is applicable only to assemblies whose frequency response functions (FRFs) are linear and time invariant.

The source can be installed into a real assembly or attached to a specially designed test stand (as described in 5.2).

The standard method has been validated for stationary signals such that the results can be presented in the frequency domain. However, the method is not restricted to stationary signals: with appropriate data processing, it is also applicable to time-varying signals such as transients and shocks (provided linearity and time invariance of the FRFs are preserved).

This document provides a method for measurement and presentation of blocked forces, together with guidelines for minimizing uncertainty. It provides a method evaluating the quality of the results through an on-board validation procedure but does not comment on the acceptability or otherwise of the results.