PROJECT PRESENTATION

ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF THESTRENGTH OF MATERIALS LABORATORY: A NON-EE/CS iLAB FOR STATIC BENDING TEST

Supervised by Dr. Ayodele K.P.

February,2012

ISHOLA Babatunde IsaacEEG/2006/064

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.

• E to be determined experimentally

(Second Moment of Areafor a rectangular beam)

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

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

The iLab Shared Architecture

• 3-tiered Architecture:

o Lab Client user interface for remote interaction

o Service Brokerweb services for client-server communication, administration and storage

o Lab Serverhardware backend that actually executes the experiment

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

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

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

Hardware Components

Robotic Arm

Linear Actuator

Load Sensor

NI USB 6009

Experimental Setup21

Experimental setup

3 4

Simulation• with 3Ds Max Studio

1 2 3

4 5 6

Simulation• with 3Ds Max Studio

7 8 9

0

PIC Microcontroller Unit (Phase One)

MCU Block Diagram

First Semester

PIC Microcontroller circuit

+/- 12V DC PSU Linear Actuator

Relay circuit

Max233 schematic

Programming and SimulationC language using PIC C CCS ComplierProteus ISIS for simulationUSB PIC Programmer

Load Sensor

iLoad Digital USB Integrated Load Cell manufactured by Loadstar SENSORS

Sends command to the sensor to directly Display sensor output in millipound (lb.) as ASCII text on command window

C# - terminal emulating program

First Semester

Phase Two: use of NI USB 6009 + LabVIEWAn 8 inputs, 14-bit, Multifunction I/O (portable Data Acquisition device (DAQ))

…in place of the PIC MCUControls 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

C# LabVIEWDynamic Linked Libraries (DLL)

LabVIEW VI for controlling experiment execution

LabVIEW Front Panel for the Static Bending Test

Experiment Execution Engine - C# Console Application

LabVIEW front Panel launched by experiment engine via dll

Robotic Arm• 5 dynamixel actuators with 4 degrees of freedom

• AX12 dynamixel

• Communication Protocolo USB2Dynamixel as TTL to USB converter

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.

InitializeSet IDSet instruction lengthSet instruction codeSet ParametersTransmit instruction

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

Screen shots of the Lab Client Interface

Live streaming from the server

“All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make, the better.”

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

THANK YOU