Overview of Status of Analysis, Design, Fabrication, Tests, etc.
Construction of the testbed is underway. The wooden base was built with the help of our sponsors. 80/20 parts arrived.
We dug trenches in Sam's backyard to place PVC pipes and sprinklers for testing. The vibrations of the outlet pipe of the solenoid valve will be measured with the sponsor's current prototype of sensors. An accelerometer attached to the pipe, a microprocessor, an AC/DC-DC converter, a blue tooth card, and a black box adapter make up the sensor package (shown in the attached photo file).
Accomplishments from Previous Week
Updated code for Teensy
Purchased and acquired the 80/20 aluminum bars
Performed Solidworks analysis of materials for the testbed container (PC appears to displace less and experience less stress)
Constructed wooden table support for the testbed and have PVC piping for it.
Dan, one of the sponsors, elucidated the inner workings of a domestic sprinkler system.
Goals for Next Week (list names after each item). Use specific and measurable objectives.
Write code for time dependent frequency analysis (FFT every small increment of time) in MATLAB. Sam
Explore FEA pipe system, solid and fluid . Madeline
Order acrylic/poly-carbonate. Bryan
Work out bugs in data collection and recording setup with the micro-controller setup. Gordon
Sponsor Comments from Last Meeting and Actions Taken to Address these Comments (indicate date of comments and if via email or in person)
Instead of testing with different pipe configurations, he wants us to test with different sensors (accelerometer, sound, pressure, mass flow) and start to correlate the data.
We established our upcoming goals: take pipe vibration data in the backyard setup and perform a frequency vs. time analysis, take pipe vibration data for breaks and leaks, which will be simulated by adjusting a valve, close the trench and repeat the testing. Then we will also take pipe vibration data in the front yard sprinkler system. While we are taking data, Kirt is preparing other sensors for us to try.
Overall, Jose emphasized that he wants us to explore the problem from different angles and see what we find.
Instructor Comments from Last Meeting and Actions Taken to Address these Comments (indicate date of comments and if via email or in person)
Use Roark and Young formulas for stress and strain.
Also in engineering drawigns, 1.0 means it’s ready for release.
Look into how fish tanks and aquariums are made, since they are intended to contain water and withstand pressure.
Make sure whether or not your sponsors intend for the testbed container to be disassembled/assembled quickly. If so, then caulk would be hard to scrape off/ reapply. Otherwise, caulk is fine as a permanent solution.
Ask Greg for advice on how to visualize data, with LabVIEW possibly.
Risks and Areas of Concern
Too much water is lost with high number of trials.
Trench gets filled with water
PVC becoming brittle with exposure of sunlight
Thickness of test bed housing needs to be adequately determined
Schedule
Describe upcoming milestone
Update Gantt chart.
Budget (list amount spent and amount remaining)
Spent: $653.12
Remaining: $1846.88
Progress on Report and Webpage
Uploaded more pictures of backyard setup
Uploaded proof of concept plot for frequency domain analysis
Updated report with impact on society section