Once the target modes have been selected for all FEM configurations the Total # Accels must be selected. If only one FEM configuration is being processed then the general rule of thumb is that 5-10 accelerometers will be required for each target modeshape. It is difficult to provide any similar guidance for multiple FEM configurations because the number of accelerometers per mode will be highly dependent on how similar the modeshapes are between the different FEM configurations. Some engineering judgment along with trying different numbers of accelerometers may be required to determine how many accelerometers will be needed.
The Genetic Algorithm can run in batch mode by specifying more than on entry in the Total # Accels field. Specifying more than one entry has the effect of running the Genetic Algorithm multiple times with different numbers of Total # Accels. All other setting remain the same for the batch runs. This feature allows the user to run several iterations of the Genetic Algorithm overnight or without user interference to examine the effects of using different numbers of accelerometers.