Structural Mechanics Impact Laboratory

Introduction

The Structural Mechanics Impact Laboratory is a teaching and research laboratory located in the basement of Kaven Hall in Room 2. The impact laboratory is used to explore the behavior of materials and components in collisions. Experiments performed in the structural mechanics impact laboratory are generally used to validate and confirm finite element experiments performed using LS-DYNA in the Graduate Computing Research Laboratory (GCRL).

Equipment

The structural mechanics impact laboratory consists of the following major pieces of equipment:

An Instron Dynatup Model 8250 Instrumented Impact Test System
- Mass range: 2.25 to 45.35 kg
- Maximum velocity without pnuematic assist:3.66 m/s
- Velocity range with pnuematic assist: 13.6 m/s with 2.25 kg mass and 6.0 m/s with 45 kg mass.
- Maximum Impact energy without pnuematic assist: 303 J
- Maximum Impact energy with pnuematic assist: 840 J
- Instrumentation available:
  - 15 kN (3500 lbs) tup
  - 22 kN (5000 lbs) tup
  - 45 kN (10,000 lbs) tup
  - High-speed video
An Instron Mini Tower Drop Tower System
- Mass range: 1.1 to 4.2 kg
- Maximum velocity: 3.0 m/s
- Maximum Impact energy: 18 J
- Instrumentation available:
  - 15 kN (3500 lbs) tup
  - High-speed video
A high-mass low-velocity drop tower impact system
- Mass range: up to 500 kg
- Maximum velocity (gravity): 7 m/s
- Maximum Impact energy: 12.25 kJ
- Instrumentation available:
  - Displacement transducer
  - 50-g accelerometer
  - 100-g accelerometer
  - High-speed video

A Charpy Pendulum Impact Tester
A FARO digitizing arm for digitizing complex shapes.
High-speed video camera system

Two Redlake Motionscope PCI 8000S cameras with frame rates bewteen xx and yy frames/sec,
Two Redlake PCI 2000S Motion Scope controller boards in a Pentium III computer,
A variety of lenses, filters, lights, mounting brackets and tripods.

Data acquisition system

Labview data analysis software and A/D board in a Pentium III computer.
Instron signal conditioner interfaced Dynatup software.
Signal conditioning unit with:
- Eight channel accelerometer module,
- Eight channel LVDT (displacement transducer) module and
- Eight channel strain-gauge module.
A variety of sensors including accelerometers, strain-gauges, LVDTs and piezoelectric tups.
A large-mass drop tower
Maximum impact mass: 185 kg
Maximum impact velocity: 7 m/s

Resources

Using the Instron 8250 drop tower.
Setting up and using the high-speed video cameras .
Setting up and using the large-mass Giola tower.

Articles

Recent Uses

CE 590E, Impact Analysis and Structural Crashworthiness.
CE 527 student projects from the 2000 Fall Semester.
CE 527 student projects from the 2000 Spring Semester 2000.

Future Improvements

The Structural Mechanics Impact Laboratory is in the process of being upgraded and expanded by means of a National Science Foundation Major Research Instrumentation Grant. Experimental test devices and data acquisition devices to be added to the lab in the near future include:

A gas-gun and impact plane,
Two additional high-speed video cameras,
A Hopkinson Bar.

Links

Maintained by webmaster@wpi.edu
Last modified: May 17, 2007 16:24:58