ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE STRENGTH OF MATERIALS LABORATORY: A NON-EE/CS iLAB FOR STATIC BENDING TEST (final year project thesis - presented by ISHOLA Babatunde Isaac, February, 2011)

1. PROJECT PRESENTATION
ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE
STRENGTH OF MATERIALS LABORATORY:
A NON-EE/CS iLAB FOR STATIC BENDING TEST
Supervised by Dr. Ayodele K.P.
February,2012
ISHOLA Babatunde Isaac
EEG/2006/064

2. Static Bending Test
• Civil Engineering Experiment
• Determination of the stiffness i.e. Modulus of Elasticity (E) of a material
• Using Static Bending Test (Beam Deflection Experiment)
• E is determined by the value of deflection of the beam under test.
(Second Moment of Area
for a rectangular beam)
• E to be determined experimentally

3. Experiment Pedagogics
• Objective: To determine the Modulus of Elasticity of a material
• Apparatus: Beam, Support, Weight, Dial Gauge
• Theory: E depends on
o Force applied on the beam
o Length of the beam
o Width and Thickness of the beams
• Procedure:
o Simply supported beams with two fixed ends
o Length, Width, and Thickness of the beam kept constant
o Known weight is applied and the corresponding deflection measured
o E is the slope of Force-Deflection graph

4. Remote Laboratories - iLabs
• iLabs are remote laboratories based on the MIT iLabs Shared Architecture, whose
multi-tiered topology makes them suitable for bandwidth constrained environment.
• iLabs are real laboratories remotely located – NOT simulation or virtual labs
• Unique solution to problems faced by conventional labs
o Sharing of laboratory facilities by multiple universities
o Scaling to large number of users worldwide
o Lab anywhere, anytime
o Effective user management

5. The iLab Shared Architecture
• 3-tiered Architecture:
o Lab Client
user interface
for remote interaction
o Service Broker
web services for client-server
communication, administration and storage
o Lab Server
hardware backend that actually executes the experiment

6. The Task
• Development of a remote laboratory for Static Bending Test
o Provide remote access to laboratory equipment using the MIT iLab Shared Architecture
o Development of the Lab Server (Static Bending Test Machine)
o Development of the Lab Client using the Adobe Flex Framework
o Deployment

7. Lab Server
• Experiment Execution Engine
o A software application to control execution of experiment
o Interacts with a Database
o Forward experiment specification to the Lab Equipment
• Laboratory Equipment
o Control system for performing beam deflection experiment
o Non- EE/CS iLab: requires a number of sensors and actuators
o Hardware , firmware, software

8. Design Issues
• Remote application of load on the beam
o Application and measurement of force – linear actuator and load sensor
• Measuring the deflection of the beam
o Getting the right sensor – potentiometer
• What happens when the beam breaks?
o Experiment must continue - robotic arm

9. Hardware Components
NI USB 6009

10. Experimental Setup
1 2

11. Experimental setup
3 4

12. Simulation
• with 3Ds Max Studio
1 2 3
4 5 6

13. Simulation
• with 3Ds Max Studio
7 8 9
0

14. PIC Microcontroller Unit (Phase One)
First Semester
MCU Block Diagram
PIC Microcontroller circuit

15. +/- 12V DC PSU Linear Actuator
Max233 schematic
Relay circuit

16. Programming and Simulation
C language using PIC C CCS Complier
Proteus ISIS for simulation
USB PIC Programmer

17. Load Sensor
iLoad Digital USB Integrated Load Cell manufactured by Loadstar SENSORS
C# - terminal emulating program
Sends command to the sensor to directly
Display sensor output in millipound (lb.) as
First Semester ASCII text on command window

18. Phase Two: use of NI USB 6009 + LabVIEW
An 8 inputs, 14-bit, Multifunction I/O (portable Data Acquisition device (DAQ))
…in place of the PIC MCU
Controls both actuation and sensing (feedback potentiometer and load sensor)
Significantly larger ADC resolution
NI USB 6009 has 14bit ADC (16384) while PIC 18F2550 has 10 bit ADC (1024)
LabVIEW program to control the DAQ
C# to control LabVIEW
Dynamic Linked
C# Libraries (DLL) LabVIEW

19. LabVIEW VI for controlling experiment execution

20. LabVIEW Front Panel for the Static Bending Test
Experiment Execution Engine
- C# Console Application
LabVIEW front Panel launched
by experiment engine via dll

21. Robotic Arm
• 5 dynamixel actuators with 4 degrees of freedom
• AX12 dynamixel
• Communication Protocol
o USB2Dynamixel as TTL to USB converter

22. Programming the Robotic Arm
C# program
Uses DLL to interface with the dynamixel actuator
Reading and writing to addresses – control table
Instruction set - Read, Write, Reg_Write, Sync_Write, Action, Ping etc.
Initialize
Set ID
Set instruction length
Set instruction code
Set Parameters
Transmit instruction

23. The Lab Client
• User interface developed Using Adobe Flex 3.0(MXML + AS3)
• Specify Force, forward experiment and measure deflection using a (virtual) dial gauge
• Unit converter (Imperial – Metric unit), Quick help…improves user experience
• Video feedback:
• Adobe Media Live Encoder 3.2 (live capturing and streaming on the server side)
• Adobe Flash Media Server 4.0 (Development Edition) uses Apache HTTP Server
• Remote Messaging Transfer Protocol (RMTP) for streaming over the internet
• Live video embedded in the Lab Client

24. Screen shots of the Lab Client Interface

25. Live streaming from the server

26. THANK YOU
“All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make, the better.”
-Ralph Waldo Emerson