CHAPTER 1 BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO THE PROBLEM

The knowledge of dynamic forces in a mechanical system subject to operational excitations is beneficial from the aspects of design, control and diagnosis of the system. In some situations the forces can be measured directly by inserting a force transducer into the force transfer path. However, for some physical systems, direct measurements of excitation forces often encounters some troubles due to installation problems of force transducers or high magnitude of forces (e.g., explosion and shock loads). When forces are applied at discrete points, load cells can be used for the direct measurement of the forces. In case if the forces are distributed throughout the surface of the body, (e.g., the traffic loads of bridges, excitations of wind, seismic excitations of buildings, the interaction force between moving machines and their bases) direct measurement therefore cannot be applied. For many structures, the introduction of a force sensor into the system can upset the dynamic characteristics of the structure. As a result, measured forces no longer represent the true forces generated by the machine. Besides, these changes require extra time and expense for the measurement. Therefore, sometimes it is necessary to find alternate methods to estimate input forces.

1.1

FORCE IDENTIFICATION Direct force measurements are made by measuring the force itself. While, on the other

hand, indirect force measurements are made by measuring another quantity which is related to the targeted force. The relationship between this quantity and the force is combined with the measured quantity itself to calculate an estimation of the targeted force. The most commonly measured quantity is the structural response of the structure being excited (acceleration, velocity, displacement). The success of an indirect force measurement naturally depends on the ability to accurately measure the structural response and the ability to accurately determine the relationship between this response and the force generating the response.

1.2

PROBLEM STATEMENT The force identification problem can be sketched as shown in Fig. 1.1. The input or

external force acting on the system is unknown. With the prior knowledge of the mathematical model to represent the system and the measured system response due to the unknown force, the force contents can be determined.

Fig (1.1) Force identification problem In general, the force contents can be the magnitude, direction and location. The external forces can be categorized into three forms. One is the spatial-variant type such as point forces and distributed forces. Another is the time-variant type such as the impact, harmonic, periodic and random forces. The time history or the frequency spectra of the force may be of interest. The other is the spatial- and time-variant type such as moving forces.

1.4

OBJECTIVE The objective of this project is to study and develop algorithms for determining input

force magnitude, direction and location using the response signals from the sensors mounted on the structure. The emphasis will be given on identifying the forces in frequency domain mainly. The objectives are listed as Development of algorithms of FRF based and modal based techniques. Simulated study to identify the forces (harmonic, periodic and impact) using above algorithms.

Experimental identification of forces for simple and complex real life

structures.

CHAPTER 2 SUMMARY OF WORK DONE IN 1st SEM

The practicability and accuracy of the identification method were examined with numerical simulation from which the input forces of a cantilever beam were identified from the output responses. First, in order to identify how many independent forces are acting on the beam, principle component analysis is utilized on responses measured. The eigen values called principal power are plotted as a function of frequency, from which we can observe the dominant eigen values for entire frequency range. The number of forces acting on the structure is equal to the number of dominant eigen vectors. In the simulated study for force identification, the cantilever beam is subjected to six types of forces i.e., harmonic, periodic, rectangular impulse, triangular impulse, sinusoidal impulse and series of impulses. And also the influence of contaminated noise on the accuracy of force identification was evaluated by numerical simulation. The simulation results show that the FRF method has a good performance to estimate the input forces of beam structural systems from the noisy measurements.

CHAPTER 3 WORK DONE AFTER LAST EVALUATION

For the validation of the system developed to identify the forces, experimental analysis was performed to identify dynamic forces. Force is identified on different types of beams viz., cantilever, free-free and fixed-fixed beam for different types of forces such as harmonic, periodic and impact forces. 3.1 FORCE IDENTIFICATION ON CANTILEVER BEAM Figure 3.1 shows a cantilever beam, the dimensions and its material properties are given in Table 3.1.

Fig. 3.1 Simple cantilever beam

Material Length (m) Width (m) Height (m) Density (Kg/m3) Elastic Modulus (Gpa) Poissons ratio

Mild steel 0.6 0.05 0.005 7800 210 0.3

Table 3.1. Material data and dimensions of the cantilever beam The first stage of the force determination procedure was to measure the frequency response functions between the response locations and node at which the force applied. For the cantilever beam the force is applied at node 3, and the response is measured at nodes 2, 4 and 6. The accelerance FRF for the beam was measured by using dual channel FFT analyzer (DI2200) with the help of instrumented hammer (Endevco2302-5) and accelerometer (BK4508). The FRF obtained are shown in figure 3.1(a),(b)&(c).
FRF between response at node 2 and force at node 3 2.5 2 1.5 1 Modulus (dB) 0.5 0 -0.5 -1 -1.5 -2

100

200

300

400 500 600 Frequency(Hz)

700

800

900

1000

(a)

FRF between response at node 4 and force at node 3 2.5 2 1.5 1 Modulus (dB) 0.5 0 -0.5 -1 -1.5 -2

100

200

300

400 500 600 Frequency(Hz)

700

800

900

1000

(b)
FRF between response at node 6 and force at node 3 2.5 2 1.5 1 Modulus (dB) 0.5 0 -0.5 -1 -1.5 -2

100

200

300

400 500 600 Frequency(Hz)

700

800

900

1000

(c) Fig 3.2. Accelerance (a) FRF 23 (b) FRF 43 (c) FRF 63

3.1.a.

IDENTIFICATION OF HARMONIC FORCE The harmonic force is given by mini shaker (BK4825). Different force levels and

excitation frequencies can be controlled by signal generator. The accelerometers are applied to measure the beam response due to the harmonic force excitation. The force amplitude is measured through force transducer. Harmonic force of frequency 70 Hz is applied at node 3. The force identification program is applied on the measured responses to determine the force amplitude. The identified force is compared with the actual force measured using force transducer. The results are shown in figure 3.3.
Measured force using force transducer 2 Magnitude of force

Measured force in time domain 2

Amplitude of force

1.5

0.5

-1

100

200 300 400 Frequency(Hz)

500

-2

0.05 time(sec)

0.1

(a)
Identified force using FRF method 2 Magnitude of force

(b)
Identified force in time doamin 2

1.5

Amplitude of force 0 100 200 300 frequency 400 500

0.5

-1

-2

0.05 time(sec)

0.1

(c)

(d)

Fig. 3.3. Comparison of measured force F in the (a) frequency and (b) time domains F identified with the FRF method in the (c) frequency and (d) time domains. From the figure we can observe that there is good agreement between exact and identified force in frequency domain as well as in time domain.

3.1.b. IDENTIFICATION OF PERIODIC FORCE In the second case a square wave is applied at node 3, and the responses are measured at nodes 2, 4 and 6. Using these responses and FRFs force is identified and is compared with the actual force measured by force transducer. The results are shown in figure 3.4
Measured force using force transducer 2 Magnitude of force

Identified force using FRF method 2 Magnitude of force 1.5 1 0.5 0

1.5 1 0.5 0

100

200 300 Frequency(Hz)

400

500

100

200 300 frequency

400

500

(a)

(b)

Fig.3.4. Comparison of (a) Measured periodic force in frequency domain to (b) identified force in frequency domain. From the figure we can conclude that the identified force magnitude is reasonably predicted by FRF method. 3.1.c. IDENTIFICATION OF IMPACT FORCE In the third case impact force is applied at node 3 using a instrumented hammer (Endevco4508) and the responses were measured. The force is identified using the responses and the actual force is measured using the force transducer in the instrumented hammer using dual channel FFT analyzer (DI2200). Results are shown in figure 3.5.
0.2

Magnitude of force

0.15

identified force

0.1

Actual force

0.05

200

400 600 frequency

800

1000

Fig 3.5. Comparison of actual and measured force in frequency domain 7

From the above result we can conclude that at anti resonant frequencies the identified force has very large errors, where as at other frequencies there is good agreement between actual and identified force. Also the error is large at low frequencies because the response is measured by an accelerometer which has inadequate sensitivity in the low frequency range. The time domains of the measured force and identified force are shown in figure 3.6.
Measured force in time domain 40 Amplitude of force (N)
Amplitude of force (N) 40 30 20 10 0 Identified force in time domain

30 20 10 0

0.5

1 time(sec)

1.5

0.5

1 time(sec)

1.5

Fig 3.6. Comparison of (a) Measured force to (b) Force identified in time domain. From the above figure we can observe that there is error in the identified force magnitude, which is caused due to the large error at anti resonant frequencies in frequency domain. The error can be decreased by using more number of responses to identify the force. 3.2 IMPACT FORCE IDENTIFICATION ON FREE FREE BEAM Next the force identification is done on a free free beam. The beam is freely suspended using flexible strings. A impact force is applied using a instrumented hammer at node 5 and the responses are measured at nodes 4, 5& 6. The FRFs between the force location and response location are measured using hammer testing. The FRFs are as shown in figure 3.7.

2 1 0 -1 -2
Magnitude(dB)

2 1 0 -1 -2

Magnitude(dB)

200

400 600 Frequency(Hz)

800

1000

200

400 600 800 Frequency(Hz)

1000

(a)

(b)

2 Magnitude(dB) 1 0 -1 -2

200

(c)

400 600 Frequency(Hz)

800

1000

Fig3.7. Accelerance (a) FRF 45 (b) FRF 55 (c) FRF 65 Using measured responses force is identified and the results are shown in figure 3.8.
0.1 0.09 0.08 0.07 Magnitude of force 0.06 0.05 0.04 0.03 0.02 0.01 0

100

200

300

400

500 600 Frequency(Hz)

700

800

900

1000

Fig 3.8. Comparison measured force and identified force in frequency domain. From the above plot we can observe that the error between identified and measured force is large at anti resonant frequencies. The actual and identified force in time domain is shown in figure 3.9.

Measured force in time domain 40 Amplitude of force (N) 30 20 10 0 Amplitude of force (N) 40 30 20 10 0

Identified force in time domain

0.5

1 time(sec)

1.5

0.5

1 time(sec)

1.5

Fig 3.9 Comparison of (a) Actual force in time domain to (b) force identified in time domain From the figure we can conclude that impact force is identified reasonably well using FRF method. 3.3 OPERATIONAL FORCE IDENTIFICATION ON FIXED FIXED BEAM WITH MOTOR The force identification method is now applied to a fixed fixed beam mounted with motor. The beam is shown in figure 3.10. Unbalances are mounted to both sides of the motor discs, so that if motor rotates it will excite the beam in transverse direction. The force identification will be used to identify the operational force on the beam when the motor is rotating.

Fig.3.10 Fixed fixed beam with motor Before actual force due to motor rotation, force identification is carried out on the response produced by a impact force. The impact force is given in transverse direction using impact hammer. By measuring the acceleration response, the force is identified. The identified force and the actual measured force in frequency domain and time domain are shown in figure 3.11 & 3.12 respectively.

10

0.4 0.35 0.3 Magnitude of force 0.25 0.2 0.15 0.1 0.05 0 0 200 400 600 frequency 800 1000 Identified force Measured force

Fig 3.11 Comparison actual force and identified force in frequency domain.
measured force in time domain Amplitude of force (N) 40 Amplitude of force(N) 30 20 10 0 40 30 20 10 0 Identified force in time domain

0.5

1 time(sec)

1.5

0.5

1 time(sec)

1.5

(a)

(b)

Fig 3.12 Comparison of (a) Actual force in time domain to (b) force identified in time domain From the above figures we can conclude that the error in magnitude of identified force is very large due to the errors at anti resonant frequencies and in low frequency region. Now during the operation of the motor the responses at three nodes 4, 6 and 7 are simultaneously measured, as shown in figure 3.13.

11

Fig 3.13. Experimental setup for operational force identification Using these responses the dynamic excitation force is identified as shown in figure 3.14.
Identified force using FRF method 1

0.8 Magnitude of force(N)

0.6

0.4

0.2

200

400 600 frequency

800

1000

Fig 3.14 Identified force in frequency domain. From the figure we can observe that the force identified is mainly at one frequency around 12Hz, i.e., the speed of the motor. The other frequency components are due to the impact of the motor base with the beam. The identified force in time domain is as shown in figure 3.15.

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Identified force in time doamin 2 1.5 Amplitude of force (N) 1 0.5 0 -0.5 -1 -1.5 -2

0.1

0.2

0.3 time(sec)

0.4

0.5

0.6

Fig 3.15 Identified force in time domain. Since the true forces are unknown, instead of comparing the identified forces with the true forces, measured response and rebuilt response are compared. Here, the rebuilt responses are calculated from the identified forces. The comparison between measured response and rebuilt response at node 6 is shown in figure 3.16
Measured response 3 Amplitude of force (N) 2 1 0 -1 -2 -3 0 0.1 0.2 time(sec) 0.3

Rebuild response 3 Amplitude of force (N) 2 1 0 -1 -2 -3 0 0.1 0.2 time(sec) 0.3

(a)

(b) Fig 3.16. Comparison of (a) measure and (b) rebuild response

From the figure we can observe that measured and rebuild responses are matching quite well, which in turn signifies the correctness of the identified force.

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Chapter 7 Conclusion and Future Work Plan

The experimental force prediction on beams has been carried out to validate the prediction model. Some conclusions are made as follows. 1. The prediction model is well validated through the numerical simulation and successfully predicts the dynamic force amplitude. 2. In actual experimental prediction, the force amplitude can be reasonably predicted Simulated studies on identification of different dynamic forces on a cantilever beam are completed. Experimental force identification on simpler structures have been carried out. Next the effects of different force amplitudes, locations and frequencies on the force identified are to be studied. And also the effect of number of sensors and location on force identified has to be studied. And then the FRF method will be applied to force identification on a complex mechanical structure. The project activity plan is given in Figure.

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REFERENCES 1) D.J.Ewins. Modal Testing: Theory, Practice and Applications. Research Studies Press, Baldock, England 2000. 2) B. Hillary and D. J. Ewins 1984 Proceedings of the 2 nd International Modal Analysis Conference, 627634. The use of strain gauges in force determination and frequency response function measurement. 3) N. Okubo, S. Tanabe, T. Tatsuno, Identification of forces generated by a machine under operating condition, The International Modal Analysis Conference, 1985.
4)

G. Desanghere and R. Snoeys 1985 Proceedings of the 3rd International Modal Analysis Conference, 685690. Indirect identification of excitation forces by modal coordinate transformation.

5) David C. Warwick and John J.Gilheany 1993 Proceedings of the 11th

International

Modal Analysis Conference. Dynamic Force Estimation via Modal Decomposition of Operational Response Measurements in a Multi-Source Environment. 6) Y. R. Kim and K. J. Kim 1997 Proceedings of the 15th International Modal Analysis Conference,12631270. Indirect input identification by modal model technique. 7) G. Genaro, D. A. Rade 1998 Proceedings of the 16th IMAC, 124129. Input force identification in the time domain. 8) B.T.Wang 2002 Mechanical systems and signal processing (2002) 16 935-953. Prediction of impact and harmonic forces acting on arbitrary structures: Theoretical formulation. 9) C.-K. Ma, J.-M. Chang and D.-C. Lin 2003 Journal of sound and vibration (2003) 259(2), 387-407. Input forces estimation of beam structures by an inverse method. 10) Yi Liu, W. Steve Shepard Jr. 2005 Journal of Sound and Vibration 282 (2005) 3760. Dynamic force identification based on enhanced least squares and total least-squares schemes in the frequency domain.

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