Monitor - ISSN 1472-0221
The Newsletter for Data Acquisition and Control
Issue 280 March 2022
Welcome to Monitor, thanks for subscribing. This month, investigating damage to reinforced concrete beams plus collecting data from Denver Instruments balances.
You can download a pdf copy of the newsletter here.
Contents
* Investigating damage to reinforced concrete beams
* Your Data Acquisition Questions Answered: Collecting Data from a Denver Instruments Balance
* Data Acquisition News Round-Up
Investigating damage to reinforced concrete beams
Web link: https://www.windmill.co.uk/
Engineers at the University of Sulaimani are studying the resiliance of reinforced concrete beams, and are using a Windmill data acquisition kit to do so.
The researchers tested the strengthened concrete beams under four-point bending using a hydraulic jack of 800kN capacity. They placed Four steel plates (60mm x 200mm x 20mm) were used under load cells and on the supports to prevent local failure due to stress concentration.
To measure tensile and compressive strength of bars and sheets, they installed three different gauge lengths of strain gauges. They added five Linear Variable Differential Transformers (LVDTs) to measure deflections.
A Windmill Microlink 851 data logger with 594 box (screw terminals with strain measurement), collects data from the load cells, LVDTs and strain gauges. The 851 connects to a computer via either the Internet or Ethernet cables. As well as the load, strain and displacement measurements, it can provide digital inputs and outputs, frequency counting, event counting and other analogue measurements like temperature, pressure, current, flow, level and pH. In all 48 channels are available on each Microlink. Two alarm thresholds may be set on all input channels, and digital channels switched on alarms.
The researchers compared their experimental results to the finite element modelling (FEM) method and found the FEM beam prediction to be stiffer and more robust than they actually were.
Further Reading
Microlink 851 data logger: Data logging, control and real-time data acquisition for Ethernet and Internet
Brwa Hamah Saeed Hamah-Ali ,Mohamed Raouf Abdul Qadir The effect of different levels of pre-damage loading on the strength and structural behavior of CFRP strengthened R.C. beams: Experimental and analytical investigation, PLOS ONE, 2021, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0261290
Your Data Acquisition Questions Answered: Data Collection from Denver Instruments P-214 balance
Question
In my hunt for software that I may use to read my Denver Instruments P-214 balance, I came across your website. I'd like to learn more about the software Windmill offers that will continuously read data from my balance.
Answer
You can use the free comDebug program to continuously log data from Denver instruments. This lets you log data from one balance. If you wanted to connect more than one device or have more sophisticated logging and charting requirements, then the Windmill software suite is free to newsletter subscribers. Contact monitor@windmillsoft.com for details.
Information on how to use the software to take readings from Denver Instruments balances is here.
Configuring ComDebug
DAQ News Round-up
Welcome to our round-up of the data acquisition and control news. If you would like to receive more timely DAQ news updates then follow us on Twitter - @DataAcquisition - or grab our rss feed.
Sensors inspired by dandelion seeds record climate change
These wireless sensors float on the wind and can monitor temperature, humidity or other environmental conditions across large swaths of land, such as farms or forests.
Source: University of Washington
https://www.washington.edu/
Self-powered heat sensor could help keep firefighters safe
The wearable, motion-powered sensor can quickly warn the wearer of dangerously high heat - more than 400 degrees C
Source: American Chemical Society
https://cen.acs.org/
Sensor breakthrough paves way for groundbreaking map of world under Earth surface
World first for a quantum gravity gradiometer outside of laboratory conditions. The sensor detects variations in microgravity.
Source: University of Birmingham
https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/
Monitoring Arctic permafrost with satellites, supercomputers and deep learning
Permafrost is important for the planet's climate, containing large amounts of biomass stored as methane and carbon dioxide, making tundra soil a carbon sink. However, permafrost's innate characteristics and changing nature are not well understood.
Source: U.S. National Science Foundation,
https://www.nsf.gov/
New geotechnical sensors set to improve road safety
The multi-functional sensors will measure the stress-strain behaviour and soil-infrastructure interaction of roadways to identify potential risks and safety issues.
Source: Innovative Manufacturing CRC
https://www.imcrc.org/
