A unique strain gage based method is developed to identify the magnitude and location of a load on a slender beam with non-homogeneous material, variable cross sections, and pinned, firm rest, soft rest, pinned-fixed, and fixed boundary conditions. Four uniaxial strain gages are mounted to the bottom surface of the beam, and the bending moment diagram of the beam can be constructed using measured strains on the beam. By combining individually scaled strain gage outputs, the magnitude and location of the load can be accurately identified. The strain gage based force transducer methodology is experimentally validated on prismatic beams with firm rest, soft rest, firm rest-fixed, and fixed boundary conditions, and a continuously tapered beam with rest boundary conditions. The force transducer methodology is independent of the boundary conditions of the beam and the error from strain gage drift due to uniform thermal expansion on a prismatic beam can cancel out.
A unique strain gauge based method is developed to identify the magnitude and location of a load on a slender beam with variable cross sections, and pinned, firm rest, soft rest, pinned-fixed, and fixed boundary conditions. Four uniaxial strain gauges are mounted to the bottom surface of the beam, and the bending moment diagram of the beam can be constructed using measured strains on the beam. By combining individually scaled strain gauge outputs, the magnitude and location of the load can be accurately identified. The strain gauge based force transducer methodology is experimentally validated on prismatic beams with firm rest, soft rest, firm rest-fixed, and fixed boundary conditions, and a continuously tapered beam with rest boundary conditions. The force transducer methodology is independent of the boundary conditions of the beam, and the error from strain gauge drift due to uniform thermal expansion on a prismatic beam can cancel out.
A strain gage based force transducer has been developed to identify magnitudes and locations of loads on non-continuous slender beams with welded and bolted joints. The slopes of the bending moment curves on the two sides of a load are calculated from measured strains on a beam. Four uniaxial strain gages are mounted to the bottom surface of the beam, with two strain gages on each side of the load. A calibration method developed earlier can be used to account for the discrepancies between the theoretical and actual scaling factors arising from stress concentrations and unpredictable stress patterns in the beams due to the presence of the joints. The force transducer methodology is experimentally validated on a continuously tapered aluminum beam with a series of welded joints, an aluminum beam with a constant cross section and a bolted joint, a half aluminum and half steel beam with two different cross sections and a bolted joint, and a full scale portable army bridge at the US Army Aberdeen Test Center.
Unique strain gage based methods are developed to identify magnitudes and locations of multiple loads on a slender beam. Four uniaxial strain gages mounted to the bottom surface of the beam create a force transducer capable of identifying the magnitude and location of a load inside the weight area. For the case of multiple loads separated by two or more strain gage locations, uniaxial strain gages forming multiple force transducers can still identify the magnitudes and locations of all the loads. However, this creates an ill posed problem for loads separated by only one strain gage location. A new method has been developed using two shear gages mounted on the neutral axis of the beam, one on each side of a load, to identify the magnitude of the load in this case. A combination of two uniaxial strain gages and two shear gages, with one uniaxial strain gage and one shear gage at the same location on each side of a load, can be used to identify the location of the load. The strain gage based methods are experimentally validated on a prismatic beam with rest boundary conditions.
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