Design Of Test Rig Research Articles

Test Rig Design and Preliminarily Assessment for a Transradial Socket

The transradial level is the most common level of upper-limb amputation seen by the prosthetist. The socket is an intermediate part to wear and fit the prosthetic device with the residual limb firmly. It is the crucial part of the prosthesis influencing the amputee's acceptance considerably. The study introduces a test rig that can assess the socket while simulating arm movements.

Development of a Process-Oriented Tribological Test Rig for the Performance Assessment of Tool Coatings in Turning of Titanium Ti6Al4V

The interaction of cutting tool and workpiece in the contact zone is crucial with regard to tool wear. This is of particular relevance for difficult to machine materials such as titanium Ti6Al4V in continuous operations like turning. Due to the low thermal conductivity of titanium, the heat generated during cutting mainly flows into the tool leading to high tool temperatures. In addition, the low Young’s modulus in combination with the high yield strength of Ti6Al4V leads to high normal and shear stresses acting on the tool surfaces and to detrimental ploughing unless sharp cutting edges are used. Previous attempts to increase the tool life in turning of Ti6Al4V by coatings have not been satisfactory. Temperature active coatings are expected to reduce friction and thus tool wear, allowing for more productive cutting conditions or reduced use of coolant. Tribological conditions strongly differ between rake and clearance face in terms of sliding velocity, stress state and temperature, while insights into the contact zone during cutting are difficult to obtain. Thus, for preliminary assessment of the tool performance, tribological pin-on-disc tests are generally used. However, they suffer from the drawback of a closed friction system, as the pin repeatedly engages the same track on the material specimen, thereby affecting its tribological behavior. In order to suitably emulate mechanical and thermal conditions in continuous cutting, an open friction system has been designed, which is characterized by simultaneous adjustment and measurement of acting forces. At the same time, tool surface temperatures are captured by intermittent radiation measurement. Consequently, the open friction test rig enables the separate investigation of the tribological conditions of rake and clearance face. In this paper, the test rig design and first experimental results obtained from tribological investigations are reported. Separation of forces and subsequent evaluation of stresses acting on both tool surfaces is explained.

Design and Manufacturing Strategy of a Back-to-Back Test Rig for Investigation of Ultra High Cycle Fatigue Strength Regarding Tooth Root Strength in Aerospace Applications

Geared turbofans increase the efficiency of aircraft engines. By decoupling the fan and low- ressure turbine, both components can be operated at their optimum speed. Due to the high number of flight hours and the high turbine speeds of n > 10,000 rpm, the number of load cycles at the gear teeth of the planetary gear unit is significantly higher than the conventional fatigue strength of gear teeth. The planetary gears under fully reversed bending load are particularly susceptible to tooth root fractures. Pulsator test rigs are not suitable for testing tooth root load capacity under fully reversed bending load. The concept of a modified 3-shaft backto-back test rig was set up to cope with this challenge. A back-to-back test rig consists of a test and reference gearbox, which are connected by shafts to form a closed power circuit. In order to perform the investigation efficiently, the test rig is operated at a speed of n > 12,000 rpm with a recirculating power of P > 5 MW. This performance class results in special requirements for the test rig design. The roller bearing arrangements normally used for back-to-back test rigs no longer offer sufficient load carrying capacity, so that a changeover to journal bearings is necessary. This leads to high power losses of the bearings of P ≈ 200 kW and oil quantities of Q ≈ 450 l/min on the cooling and bearing lubrication side. The journal bearings of the gearboxes have a decisive disadvantage. Starting under load is not possible. Therefore, a hydraulic load unit was designed which allows load application at operating speed. In the reference gearbox, this unit shifts two helical gears on a spline shaft, which are slanted in opposite directions, towards each other, so that a torsional load is generated in the test gearbox by means of a closed power circuit. The two displaceable helical gears represent the greatest challenge from a manufacturing point of view. In order to achieve an even load distribution on both gears, they must be manufactured very precisely to each other and to the spline profile. In the report, the focus is set on the double helical reference gearbox including the axial load unit. Besides the design of the components the requirements regarding manufacturing are analysed and possible manufacturing chains are discussed.

Effects of strain rate variation on the shear adhesion strength of impact ice

In-flight ice accretion on fixed-wing aircraft and rotorcraft can be catastrophic if not mitigated. Most modern ice protection systems are active systems, which require electrical or mechanical power to remove accreted ice, thereby increasing weight, cost, and complexity. Scientists and engineers now seek passive, erosion-resistant materials and coatings with low ice adhesion strength. Ideally, such materials, when applied to vulnerable components of an aircraft, would cause any ice to shed off the surface under normal aerodynamic loading.To aid in the development of low-ice-adhesion-strength materials, the growth and structural behavior of impact ice in a wide range of atmospheric conditions must be characterized. The structural behavior of ice has been examined under pure shear, tension, compression, and mixed-mode loading. However, one important loading consideration that has not been widely investigated on atmospheric ice is strain rate.Knowledge of the relationship between impact ice adhesion strength and strain rate is important because it can be used to design future ice protection systems, and it may dictate the appropriate course of action for a pilot flying through icing conditions—for instance, whether a helicopter pilot should increase the rotor speed rapidly or slowly to induce shedding of the ice.NASA Glenn Research Center funded the design and construction of a new centrifuge-style ice adhesion test rig (“AJ2”) by the Penn State AERTS lab. The ice is accreted dynamically by spinning flat metal test coupons at high speed inside a simulated icing cloud environment. The design and analysis of the AJ2 rig is described in detail in this paper.Experiments were performed using AJ2 to investigate how the adhesion strength of impact ice related to the strain rate applied to it. Stainless steel test coupons of known surface roughness were tested in a range of environmental temperatures. The strain rates applied to the ice ranged between 5E−8 and 5E-5 s−1. It was discovered that a similar power function exists between strain rate and adhesion strength as found in the freezer-ice studies described in the literature. Despite scatter in the data, regression analysis determined the relationship between strain rate, temperature, and adhesion strength to be statistically significant. The power “1/n” for a coupon roughness of 64 nm (Sa) was greater than that of the 80-nm coupon; this was the case for both tested temperatures. However, for the relatively smooth surfaces tested, regression analysis suggested that the surface roughness had negligible effect on adhesion strength. Lower temperatures caused a higher power “1/n” and coefficient “c” in the power function. The variation of the coefficient with temperature is consistent with Glen's power law for the creep of glacier ice in compression. However, Glen did not observe a variation of the power with temperature. The value of “n” in the current study ranged from 2.6 for the smoothest sample at the coldest temperature, to 8.8 for the roughest sample at the warmest temperature. In most cases of the current study, “n” was within the range of previously-reported values in literature (1.5 to 6).

Oil Brush Seals in Turbomachinery: Flow Analyses and Closed-Form Solutions

Abstract Brush seals are one of the most important dynamic seals used in oil and oil mist applications in industrial turbines and aviation. Flexible bristle structure is the main structural superiority of brush seals, which enables precise clearance control and high performance in compensating rotor transients. The viscous medium between the high-speed rotor surface and brush seal bristles generates a hydrodynamic lifting force that determines seal clearance and leakage rate in oil sealing applications. Shear heating at moderate and high rotor surface speeds results in an increase in temperature and stabilization of lifting force, which is known as high-speed lift stabilization. Strong temperature–viscosity dependency of lube oils possesses the need for a detailed analysis and understanding of the effect of shear heat on hydrodynamic lift of brush seals in oil applications. To provide a better understanding about the critical balance of hydrodynamic lift force with rotor speed, temperature, and pressure, this work presents an analytical study to investigate pressure profile and shear heat temperature rise in liquid sealing medium within the hydrodynamic lift clearance. A closed-form solution to pressure and temperature distribution in axial and radial directions has been obtained by solving continuity, Navier–Stokes, and thermal energy equations for brush seals. The thermal and pressure functions are evaluated for linear and nonlinear pressure drop approaches, and the results are compared with each other. Deviation in nonlinear and linear pressure, resulting temperature level differences, and effect of rotor speed are detailed within the content of this study. The provided closed-form functions for pressure and temperature profiles are useful for designers since these can be utilized for turbine operation conditions. Dynamic test rig design for high-speed leakage performance measurement of turbomachinery seals is detailed, where the test rig can also be adopted for stiffness, frictional heat, power loss, torque loss, and bucket tip stability testing in oil and air environment. The test setup can also be used for testing dynamic seals other than brush seals.

Operational Flexibility of Two-Phase Flow Test Rig for Investigating the Dynamic Instabilities in Tube Boiling Systems

The safe operation of a two-phase heat exchanger can be performed by determining the instability threshold values of power plant parameters. Thus, the power plant parameters must be designed outside these thresholds to avoid undesirable instability. The fluctuations in mass flow and system pressure are undesirable processes, resulting in system failure. In diverse heat transfer distribution, that can lead to burn-out of heat exchanger tubes. Therefore, the maintaining of flow stability in a power plant is of particular relevance. The researchers and engineers can predict the threshold of flow instability with dynamic models validated with experimental records. The phenomenon of dynamic flow instabilities in two-phase flows is an important issue that has high relevance for many industries. The awareness about the triggers and the effects of fluid dynamic instabilities is of great importance in the design and operation of steam generators, refrigeration systems, thermosiphons or boiling water reactors. These instabilities manifest themselves in variations of mass flow, pressure, and fluid properties. In this work, the dynamic instabilities involved in evaporation processes were briefly discussed with simple models to understand the mechanism of its different types. Additionally, it is presented the design and construction of a two-phase flow test rig using the similarity and the scaling criteria. A heat recovery steam generator (HRSG) designed by Doosan Heavy Industries and Construction is scaled down to 4 × 4 × 2 m3. The combination of the flow diagram and the thermohydraulic design is represented in three-dimension model of the test rig using the Siemens NX 10.0 software. The flexibility of operation was taken into account in the design of this test rig. Finally, we provided preliminary results to showcase some functionalities and the capability of the test rig to characterize the existing flow pattern through the evaporator and investigate the internal characteristic curve of the evaporator.

Operational Flexibility of Two-Phase Flow Test Rig for Investigating the Dynamic Instabilities in Tube Boiling Systems

The safe operation of a two-phase heat exchanger can be performed by determining the instability threshold values of power plant parameters. Thus, the power plant parameters must be designed outside these thresholds to avoid undesirable instability. The fluctuations in mass flow and system pressure are undesirable processes, resulting in system failure. In diverse heat transfer distribution, that can lead to burn-out of heat exchanger tubes. Therefore, the maintaining of flow stability in a power plant is of particular relevance. The researchers and engineers can predict the threshold of flow instability with dynamic models validated with experimental records. The phenomenon of dynamic flow instabilities in two-phase flows is an important issue that has high relevance for many industries. The awareness about the triggers and the effects of fluid dynamic instabilities is of great importance in the design and operation of steam generators, refrigeration systems, thermosiphons or boiling water reactors. These instabilities manifest themselves in variations of mass flow, pressure, and fluid properties. In this work, the dynamic instabilities involved in evaporation processes were briefly discussed with simple models to understand the mechanism of its different types. Additionally, it is presented the design and construction of a two-phase flow test rig using the similarity and the scaling criteria. A heat recovery steam generator (HRSG) designed by Doosan Heavy Industries and Construction is scaled down to 4 × 4 × 2 m3. The combination of the flow diagram and the thermohydraulic design is represented in three-dimension model of the test rig using the Siemens NX 10.0 software. The flexibility of operation was taken into account in the design of this test rig. Finally, we provided preliminary results to showcase some functionalities and the capability of the test rig to characterize the existing flow pattern through the evaporator and investigate the internal characteristic curve of the evaporator.

Experimental Design, Instrumentation, and Testing of a Laboratory-Scale Test Rig for Torsional Vibrations—The Next Generation

Drilling technology and specially drilling equipment has dramatically changed in the last 10 years through intensive and innovative technologies, both in terms of hardware and software. While engineers are focusing on safer, faster, and more reliable than ever technologies, big data and automation are currently considered the way forward to achieve these goals. Especially when automation concepts are proposed, the prior testing and qualification under a laboratory-controlled environment are mandatory. Drilling simulators have been hugely successful in training industry personnel and academic professionals. A big reason for its success lies in the seamless integration of hardware and software to include an interactive user interface. Physical experimental simulators have the advantage of exposing the user with visual and auditive aids to better understand the real process. This paper provides an insight into the construction and results obtained using a dedicated laboratory setup, which is also configured to various levels of automation. The setup is capable of safely recreating drilling vibrations that occur in wells, including stick-slip vibrations, which are detrimental in nature. With advanced sensor capabilities, the impact of proper sampling rates on the diagnosis of stick-slip vibrations has been analyzed in the paper. The results show that these vibrations are not only dependent on drilling parameters, such as rotational speed (RPM), torque, and weight on bit, but also on stick-slip parameters, such as bit sticking time period and frequency.

Design and Fabrication of Fatigue Test Rig for Composite Leaf Spring

Design and Fabrication of Fatigue Test Rig for Composite Leaf Spring

Creep test rig for cantilever beam: Fundamentals, prospects and present views

Cross arms in transmission tower are made up of Chengal wood, which degrade and collapse after a long period of service. This is due to creep deformation, and the rate of degradation is expedited due to exposure to extreme tropical climate. Hence, it is crucial to comprehend the early creep stage, which leads to structural failure. Apart from that, there are several research and industrial application gaps of these cross arms. For instance, creep life analysis of actual cross arms is still unexplored. In this study, the state-of-the-art is related to creep experiments and creep test rig designs, espacially on the creep test of a cantilever beam setup. The experimental methodologies implemented two vital approaches, conventional and accelerated techniques. The specific creep experiments on cantilever beam structure are emphasized and suggested in the manuscript as the building blocks for future design of cantilever creep test rig. This helps to guide future development design of cantilever beam creep test rig by fulfilling the specific criteria related to creep fundamentals, numerical modelling analysis, test operation for data evaluation, and development process. At the end, the challenges and improvements on the criteria existing design of test rigs are elaborated.

Design of a Mechanical Power Circulation Test Rig for a Wind Turbine Gearbox

We developed a mechanical power circulation test rig for a wind turbine gearbox with a power rating of 5.8 MW or less. The test rig consists of an electric motor, two auxiliary gearboxes, a torque-applying device, lubrication systems, cooling systems, and control systems. The torque generating device consists of a planetary gearbox and a hydraulic control system and is used to apply the desired torque to the test gearbox. The hydraulic control system applies the torque on the ring gear of the planetary gearbox. The gears and bearings of the two auxiliary gearboxes and planetary gearboxes met the design criteria for a safety factor of over 1.2 and a bearing life of 30,000 h. In addition, the master and slave gearboxes were connected to the test rig to verify whether the torque-applying device had applied variable torque in real-time during the test. The device was only able to induce a variable torque of up to 45.2 kN-m due to the limitation of the rated torque of the master and slave gearboxes. The test rig can test not only efficiency, vibration, and noise but also durability and overloading.

Design and Fabrication of Solar Organic Rankine Cycle Test Rig with Helical Coil Heat Exchangers and working fluid selection strategy

Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) is a modified Rankine cycle which uses organic working fluid to convert heat into useful energy. ORC has proven its potential in the field of exploiting waste heat generated by process industries. Due to environmental concerns and power demand, researchers now started exploiting renewable energy sources like solar and geothermal energies as heat source for ORC. The research in the field of ORC has revealed that, the energy conversion efficiency of ORC is very low and depends on working fluids used in it. Although variety of organic working fluids are available in market, the Zeotropic working fluids have revealed the better performance in ORC systems due to their temperature glide characteristics in evaporator and condenser but the unknown thermophysical characteristics of these working fluids restricts their use in ORC. This motivates a researcher to explore new possibilities to use these working fluids and improve ORC efficiency. In this regard a systematic test setup is designed and developed to test the potential of Zeotropic working fluids with solar energy as heat source.

Design and Parameter Optimization of Spiral-Dragon Type Straw Chopping Test Rig

In order to address the problems of large chop length, high energy consumption and poor chopping effect that were associated with a horizontal total mixed rations (TMR) mixer, a straw chopping device was designed; further, its structure and working principle were analyzed. In this study, wheat straw was chosen as the test object. The number of processing times, number of fixed blades, cutting speed, number of tooth plates and the inclined angle of the box were considered as the test factors. The standard straw length rate and average power were used as evaluation indices for conducting the orthogonal rotation combination experiment with five factors and five levels of quadratic regression. The experimental results denoted that the order of influencing factors on the standard straw length rate can be given as follows: the number of processing times, number of fixed blades, cutting speed, number of tooth plates and inclined angle of the box. The order of the influence of each factor on the average power can be given as follows: the cutting speed, number of fixed blades and number of tooth plates. Further, the optimum structural and working parameters of the device can be determined as follows: linear cutting speed of 17-20 m/min, box inclined angle of 70°-80°, 20-23 fixed blades, 5-6 processing times and 4-7 tooth plates. Under such a circumstance, the standard straw length rate reached up to 70.5%-77.4% and the average power was low at 5.8-7 kW. The results can be used as reference for designing a chopping device for a TMR mixer. Keywords: total mixed rations, straw, chopping device, parameter optimization DOI: 10.25165/j.ijabe.20201301.4927 Citation: Ma P B, Li L Q, Wen B Q, Xue Y H, Kan Z, Li J B. Design and parameter optimization of spiral-dragon type straw chopping test rig. Int J Agric & Biol Eng, 2020; 13(1): 47–56.

Conceptual design of multi-operation outdoor flexural creep test rig using hybrid concurrent engineering approach

The hybridisation of conceptual design methods is presented in the development of multi-operations creep flexural test rig. The paper explains the integration of theory of inventive problem solving (TRIZ), Morphological chart, and Analytic Network Process (ANP) method to ensure the quality function is fulfilled with the essential requirements. The objective of this project is to produce and choose the best design concept for the product development depending on the product design specifications (PDS). In the early stage of product development, the TRIZ contradiction principles and 40 TRIZ inventive solutions were applied as the guidance tools. To refine the specification of the product design, the principle solution parameters were detailed systematically with the aid of morphological chart. In this article, four innovative conceptual designs of the multi-operations creep flexural test rig were produced and the selection process was conducted using ANP method to perform the multi-criteria decision making process in selecting the best concept design.

Design and parameter optimization of spiral-dragon type straw chopping test rig

In order to address the problems of large chop length, high energy consumption and poor chopping effect that were associated with a horizontal total mixed rations (TMR) mixer, a straw chopping device was designed; further, its structure and working principle were analyzed. In this study, wheat straw was chosen as the test object. The number of processing times, number of fixed blades, cutting speed, number of tooth plates and the inclined angle of the box were considered as the test factors. The standard straw length rate and average power were used as evaluation indices for conducting the orthogonal rotation combination experiment with five factors and five levels of quadratic regression. The experimental results denoted that the order of influencing factors on the standard straw length rate can be given as follows: the number of processing times, number of fixed blades, cutting speed, number of tooth plates and inclined angle of the box. The order of the influence of each factor on the average power can be given as follows: the cutting speed, number of fixed blades and number of tooth plates. Further, the optimum structural and working parameters of the device can be determined as follows: linear cutting speed of 17-20 m/min, box inclined angle of 70°-80°, 20-23 fixed blades, 5-6 processing times and 4-7 tooth plates. Under such a circumstance, the standard straw length rate reached up to 70.5%-77.4% and the average power was low at 5.8-7 kW. The results can be used as reference for designing a chopping device for a TMR mixer. Keywords: total mixed rations, straw, chopping device, parameter optimization DOI: 10.25165/j.ijabe.20201301.4927 Citation: Ma P B, Li L Q, Wen B Q, Xue Y H, Kan Z, Li J B. Design and parameter optimization of spiral-dragon type straw chopping test rig. Int J Agric & Biol Eng, 2020; 13(1): 47–56.

Evaluation of Design and Simulation of Creep Test Rig for Full‐Scale Crossarm Structure

A simulated model was developed in order to design and simulate the mechanical properties of a cantilever beam creep testing rig for a full‐scale size crossarm in transmission towers. Currently, the Malaysian power grid system is implementing several materials, such as Chengal wood, polymeric composite, and galvanised steel, as crossarm structures. However, there is a lack of study regarding the long‐term mechanical behaviour of heavy structures in the literature. Hence, this article explains the design development of creep test rig for a full‐scale crossarm structure using CATIA and mechanical simulation (deformation and safety factors) of the product via ANSYS. The test rig will be used to predict the creep life of the cantilever beam structure. In this study, a tall and large base area structure was designed and replicated from an actual tower to elevate the crossarm above the ground level. In order to select the best performance model, a baseline conceptual test rig was generated in CAD modelling, and the finite element analysis was carried out by using a static structural analysis in ANSYS. Four different bracing configurations were incorporated in the baseline model, and the modified structures were then analysed. The results show that the hybrid bracing configuration has enhanced the mechanical properties and safety factors in the baseline model.

Root Based Optimization Algorithm for Task-Oriented Structural Design of a Multi-Axial Road Test Rig

A novel root based optimization algorithm (ROA), which mimics the proliferation of plant roots, is proposed to evaluate the performances of a multi-axial road test rig over a prescribed workspace. Plant roots have developed complex behavior patterns to search for nutrients in the soil and even exhibit swarm intelligence. The growing roots can adapt their actions such as elongation, branching, and tropistic movement according to the environment. During the process of foraging for water and nutrients, the adaptive growth behavior of roots can be simulated to tackle the optimization problem. The efficiency of the proposed ROA has been validated by comparing it with well-known intelligent algorithms using classical and IEEE CEC 2019 benchmark functions. Computational results indicate that ROA outperforms other algorithms to search a global optimum on several benchmarks. Furthermore, the results are tested with nonparametric statistical methods, e.g., Wilcoxon rank-sum test. Besides, ROA is applied to the optimal dimensioning synthesis of the multi-axial road test rig (MRTR) based on the orthogonal 6-RSS parallel manipulator to promote the device's performance. The inverse kinematics of the multi-axial road test rig based on the asymmetrical orthogonal 6-RSS parallel mechanism is analyzed in detail. Applying the achieved dimensionless Jacobian, the performance criteria involving the global isotropy index, the force/velocity transmissibility index, the decoupling index are established. By simultaneously taking account the proposed criteria of performance, structural optimization is carried out resorting to ROA. Finally, a set of optimized dimensional parameters is obtained. The practical application further illustrates that ROA has the potential to deal with complex optimization problems.

A new method for testing polymer gear wear rate and performance

This paper provides details of a new test rig design and methodology intended for, and successfully applied to, measuring the gear wear rate and performance of polymer composite gears under both dry and lubricated conditions. One of its unique contributions is that it continuously measures the gear wear rate, a feature essential for understanding polymer gear behaviour. While sharing some concepts with the traditional back-to-back test configuration used for steel gears, the new method introduces a rotary freedom to the block supporting the polymer gears under test. This block rotates if the gear tooth thickness is reduced, which aids control of the test load. The gear surface wear rate is recorded continuously by using a capacitance transducer to measure the pivot block motion. A second unique contribution of the new test method involves splitting the support block so that controlled misaligned gear engagements (not reported in other designs) can be introduced and subsequent changes to wear behaviour studied. The paper first outlines the test rig concepts and design before discussing in more detail the gear wear rate measuring principles, the methods of centre distance adjustment and the achievement of virtually constant gear loading. Finally, a selection test results are presented in summary to further validate the new test method and illustrate potential applications.

Non-linear material characterization of CFRP with FEM utilizing cohesive surface considerations validated with effective tensile test fixturing

Modelling the effect of fibre orientation in carbon fibre reinforced plastic (CFRP) on mechanical behaviour is critical for component design and manufacturing process optimization. The objectives of this paper are to simulate the mechanical properties of CFRP to fracture and design a tensile test rig that could induce fracture at the specimen gauge section consistently. Finite element solver ABAQUS Explicit was used to simulate the effects of mass/time scaling, different failure models and cohesive surfaces. Failure models evaluated were Hashin, MCT, LaRC02, maximum strain, Tsai-Wu, Tsai-Hill, Christensen and Puck. The fibre orientations investigated were parallel, 45° and perpendicular to the tensile loading condition. Extensive design of the tensile test rig was briefly described. Experimental results showed that with the newly designed test rig, the failure occurred in the gauge region, regardless of the fibre orientation. When the fibre orientation was parallel to the tensile load, all the failure models show similar rate of force increment with respect to displacement. Puck's failure model most accurately predicts the fracture force and displacement versus experimental data. With fibre orientations at 45° and 90°, the maximum strain and LaRCO2 failure models were more suitable in terms of accuracy and simulation convergence. Incorporating cohesive surfaces between instances to predict nonlinearity in the loading response is critical. Significant reduction in failure force was predicted when test was setup at angles between parallel to 45°. The model was capable of predicting the effects of fibre orientation and laminate thickness on fracture force agreeing with published experimental results.

Design and Fabrication of a Three-Point Bending Test Rig to Evaluate Strength and Stiffness of I-Beam

I-beam is widely used as main structures in the automotive and oil and gas industries due to their ability to sustain axial load at very minimum weight. For any structure, the important parameter should put into considerations are strength and stiffness. A Three-point bending test is a well-known method to evaluate the strength and stiffness of a beam. The existing machine to perform a three-point bending test is the Instron® 5585 Universal Testing Machines (UTM). However, these machines can only measure specimen within 500 mm which is insufficient for a longer specimen. In this study, a new design testing rig was proposed to evaluate the strength and stiffness of the longer specimen of I-beam. For this study, the design of the testing rig was evaluated using finite element analysis for 3 different lengths to determine its strength and rigidity. From this analysis, it is found that the proposed design of a testing rig shows satisfactory strength and rigidity for the length of 500 mm to 1000 mm when loaded with 10 kN force.