By James Wren, Application Engineer, Prosig
A strain gauge is an electrical sensor which is used to accurately measure strain in a test piece. Strain gauges are usually based on a metallic foil pattern. The gauge is attached to the test piece with a special adhesive. As the test piece is deformed, so the adhesive deforms equally and thus the strain gauge deforms at the same rate and amount as the test piece. It’s for this reason that the adhesive must be carefully chosen. If the adhesive cracks or becomes detached from the test piece any test results will be useless.
Strain gauges are used not just for metals; they have been connected to the retina of the human eye, insects, plastics, concrete and indeed any material where strain is under investigation. Modern composite materials like carbon fibre when under development are often constructed with strain gauges between the layers of the material.
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By Dr Colin Mercer, Technical Director, Prosig
Accelerometers are robust, simple to use and readily available transducers. Measuring velocity and displacement directly is not simple. In a laboratory test rig we could use one of the modern potentiometer or LVDT transducers to measure absolute displacement directly as static reference points are available. But on a moving vehicle this is not possible.
More here… OmegaArithmetic.pdf
By James Wren, Application Engineer, Prosig
The following application note shows the steps taken to perform a structural analysis on an automotive exhaust pipe structure with the aim of improving the structural damping properties of the exhaust pipe mount. This application note is a follow up to a previous article – “Preventing Component Failure In The Fast Lane”.
A recent signal processing application note described how the Prosig sponsored Dalmeny Racing Formula Ford Team, whilst contesting the UK Formula Ford 1600cc championship, suffered several minor structural failures on a particular part of an exhaust pipe mount. Prosig dispatched a team of engineers and after a brief survey of the damage the Prosig engineers made an outline assessment “Our initial thoughts are that the exhaust itself might be resonating at particular engine speeds, thus causing some shear forces in the mount, which could then in turn cause stresses in the material leading to cracking and eventually failure.” read »»»
By James Wren, Application Engineer, Prosig
In this note the different types of transducers that can be used with the Prosig P8000 series data acquisition system are discussed. The article deals with the design and function of the different types of transducer and the applications they are normally associated with. read »»»
In a recent article we described how the Prosig P8000 hardware and DATS software had been used to help Dalmeny Racing diagnose a problem with an exhaust bracket on their Formula Ford racing car. Whilst the car was instrumented for structural tests on the exhaust the opportunity was taken to also take some noise and vibration readings during an engine run up. It was felt that these would provide some useful “real world” data as well as maybe providing some extra information regarding the exhaust bracket failure. After analysing and animating the hammer data it became clear that the engine runup data wouldn’t be needed. However, it was decided that some analysis should be carried out to see if the noise and vibration data backed up the conclusions of the other tests. read »»»
