Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Abstract
This paper describes the development of a wireless measurement system for multiple strain measurements on
rotational structures.
Impulse to this development has been given by an industrial need to measure strains on complex loaded
rotating cylinders.
After an introduction into the basics of strain measurements and signal conditioning, the principles of the low
cost, wireless microphone system are explained, followed by a discussion on the data acquisition process.
Finally, preliminary validation results are discussed.
The major challenge for this development being wireless multi-channel data transmission, other design
criteria like portability, lightweight and ease of setup were to be fulfilled at low cost, without compromising
on reliability, accuracy and bandwidth.
The developed system is multipurpose as it is not limited to strain gauge signals only, but can be used for
other sensors too.
1. Problem statement
Strain gauges have a long tradition in measuring
strains on structural components. Usually, a wire
network connects these sensors with their signal
conditioning and data acquisition system. However,
in case of rotating structures, sensor data must be
transmitted in a wireless way. Commercially
available wireless systems like inductive
(contactless) or slip rings (contact) systems have to
be tailored to the application and hence are very
expensive.
For one-off measurements or multipurpose
measurement needs, a low cost, flexible and
adaptive wireless measurement system is needed.
Such need was expressed within an industrial
project concerning the replacement of existing but
degraded cylinders used in film production by new
lightweight versions.
The current cylinders, made of glass reinforced
polyester, are 195 cm long, have a diameter of
663
664
k=
where:
R / R R / R
=
L / L
(1)
k : gauge-factor
R : resistance of the wire
L : length of the wire
I NSTRUMENTATION
665
gauge
factor k = 2 and an electrical resistance of 120
K
LIMNNPOQ8RSTULVM TWRVOQYXZM[XT[R\
S8Q]SW
R\
^Q]_,`ba
ced.fg:h,h<d
10-6ikj?lnm
oqp osr[lnm1t uwvyx zx|{:}
~ sx[x|{<zY,z
such very small resistance change one needs special
signal conditioning techniques.
3. Basics of signal conditioning
The most common way to measure the resistance is
to supply a constant voltage and to measure the
current through it. However, as electrical resistance
variation due to temperature effects in the wire can
be of the same order of magnitude as the resistance
variation due to the thermomechanical strains of
interest, strain gauges are mounted in a Wheatstone
bridge [1]. Such bridge consists of 2 identical
resistors, one active strain gauge and one passive
strain gauge.
1Y<VY;
R sa
V EX
Rsp
Rsa
VO = VEX
R + Rsa R + Rsp
(2)
1YbZ 1
Y<
T E?
VO = VEX
k
4 + 2k
(3)
VO = output voltage
VEX = Excitation voltage
k = gauge factor
VO
where :
R sp
81's'
666
Vo =
k
VEX
2
(4)
VO = kVEX
(5)
I NSTRUMENTATION
667
5. Wireless
In normal test setups the strain gauges on the
structure are directly connected to the signal
conditioning and data acquisition equipment on the
fixed floor, by means of long, high quality cables.
In case of rotating structures, cable connections
cannot be used.
Industrial wireless telemetry
systems for strain gauges are available on the
market and could be used. However, most of the
time they are large and heavy. They include only a
few channels and are very expensive.
To allow for inverse load identification, many
measurement locations and directions were needed.
Although several measurements could be performed
sequentially, a simultaneous measurement of 8
strain signals was considered as a minimum. With
commercially available equipment this would be
unaffordable for a single measurement campaign.
Hence, an innovative low cost system was
developed. The key element in this measurement
system is the use of a commercial wireless
microphone system. For an acceptable price a good
quality (hi-fi) signal transmission is available.
High-end models are equipped with double
receivers to allow large movement of the
microphone without receiving gaps.
The output of the signal condition of the strain
gauges has to be converted to a microphone-like
signal and has to be sent to the transmitter.
For this application, microphone transmitters
have attractive features : they are simple, small,
lightweight, but most of all, they have a low cost per
channel.
6. Equipment configuration
668
R otating pa rt
tra nsm itter
m odulator
strain gauges
tube
Fixed part
receiver
daq -system
7. Modulation
The service loads analysis needed information from
long term strains changes (months), slow changes
(hours) to fast changes during the winding process
(150 RPM). Hence, the measuring system had to be
designed from DC to 200 Hz.
The wireless microphone transmitter is not
capable of transmitting DC-signals or very low
I NSTRUMENTATION
9. Specifications
UHF transmission frequency : 740 MHz
LF carrier frequency : 17kHz
!"#$
669
11. Calibration
To do quantitative measurements all sensors had to
be calibrated. Two calibration test were done on an
empty cylinder : internal pressure and torsion.
Calibration was done by fixing the cylinder to avoid
turning. By applying a known pneumatic pressure
in the longitudinal direction and knowing the overall
cylinder stiffness, all strain gauges in this direction
could be calibrated.
Next, a beam of 1 m length was fixed at one
end of the tube. A known mass was mounted at the
end of the beam, thereby loading the cylinder in
torsion. All strain gauges mounted under 45
degrees could be calibrated in this way.
However, for the remaining strain gauges, it
was nearly impossible to apply a particular force
resulting in easily predictable strains. Hence, by
means of approximation, the same calibration values
were used. Such approximation is justified in case
the strain gauges all originate from the same batch
and are mounted in the same way, which was more
or less the case.
0.37
1bar
0 bar
0 bar
0.30
0.25
2 bar
1 bar
0.20
0.15
3 bar
0.10
0.05
4 bar
0.00
-0.02
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
160
180
200
220
243
sec
670
0.19
0.10
0.00
-0.10
-0.20
-0.30
-0.40
-0.50
-0.59
3
sec
14. Conclusion
The design and development of a wireless
measurement system has been described. The
system can measure strains in up to 16 points. It
uses a wireless microphone system technology,
capable of transmitting signals from DC to 200 Hz.
Main advantage apart from the wireless aspect is its
low cost per channel.
This low cost wireless system has been
designed to estimate service loads of rotating
cylinders used in film industry.
Preliminary
experiments have proved the capabilities of the
wireless sytem.
References
13. Data-acquisition
The signals received from the wireless microphone
system are converted by the demodulator to analog
signals between 5V in the baseband. These signals
can be received by common data acquisition boards.
For this project a DAQCard1200 multi function
analog input data acquisition from National
Instruments was used. A PCMCIA card plugged in
a notebook run the data-acquisition software. This
software was written in LABView. The advantage
of such a tailored program is that during the
measurement in real time some important analysis
can be done and can be monitored. The raw
measured data are stored on disk and remain
available for later analysis.