Over the course of the Spring semester, my team has accomplished several goals in finishing the torsion test. First, we were able to acquire sample rod donations from PDM Steel as well as strain gauges from Vishay. Ken Matzeck from PDM steel supplied us with several rods and a flat plate to use in our torsion test, and Jim Johnson donated strain gauges as well as the surface preparation materials required to install it. We are extremely grateful to these two contributions because it allowed us to reduce our budget significantly and perform our tests efficiently.
Dr. Furman donated defective strain gauges to practice installation with. Steve and I practiced on a section of steel pipe, and were able to complete the installation in about 45 minutes. I have been documenting our errors and lab procedure so future groups will not run into the same mistakes that we have.
Kriti Kalwad was our contact for the finite element modeling but has been busy with graduate work, so we decided to go ahead and perform the calibration test on steel rods that we acquired. We measured the angle of twist of the rods as a function of torque. Compared to calculated data, the measurements were within a 15% error, which we found acceptable.
The next step is to complete the calibration test with a 5 foot circular pipe, and then a square pipe on Monday, April 25th. After analyzing the data and comparing the square pipe results to a FEA model, we will aim for completion of the track specimen, although there may not be enough time to construct and test it.
For Maker Faire, we are preparing a test specimen to showcase as well as a poster board with our experimental results.
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