TORQUE,MASS AND FORCE

MEASUREMENT
lecture 5
By
A. N. Udosen
Department of Mechanical Engineering,
UNN.

ME 343: Measurement and Instrumentation

 TORQUE, MASS AND FORCE MEASUREMENT
• At the end of this lesson you will know:
• Torque measurement in rotating bodies using
Four techniques .
• Details of strain gauge based torque
measurement .
• Force measurement using Two instruments.
• Mass measurement using Five instruments.

ME 343: Measurement and Instrumentation

 Four torque measurement techniques?
1. Reaction force measurement technique in cradled shaft
bearings.
2. The Prony break technique.
3. Optic fibre technology .
4. Induced strain measurement technique in rotating shafts.

Why Measure Torque?

• To ensure that the design of the rotating member is adequate
to prevent failure under shear stress.
• Torque measurement is necessary to know the power
transmitted by the rotating shafts.
• Its generally of fundamental importance to know the applied
torque and torque transmissions in every rotating shaft

ME 343: Measurement and Instrumentation

1. Reaction force measurement technique in cradled
shaft bearings.
• The torque transmission through a shaft contains both a
power source and a power absorber where the power is
dissipated.
• The torque is measured by cradling either the power source or
the power absorber end of the shaft bearings and then
measuring the reaction force (F) and the arm length (L).

ME 343: Measurement and Instrumentation

 2. The Prony break technique
• Its used to measure the torque in a rotating shaft and consists
of a rope wound round the shaft.
• One end of the rope being attached to a spring balance and
the other end carrying a load of mass (m).
• The limitations are that a lot of heat is generated because of
friction between the rope and shaft, and water cooling is
usually necessary.

ME 343: Measurement and Instrumentation

 3. Optic fibre technology
• Two black and white stripped wheels are mounted at either
end of the rotating shaft and are in alignment when no torque
is applied to the shaft.
• The rotation of the wheels causes pulses of reflected light and
these are transmitted back to the receiver by a second pair of
fibre optic cables.

ME 343: Measurement and Instrumentation

4. Induced strain measurement technique in rotating
shafts.

• It’s the most common method used for torque measurement ideal
for measuring the stalled torque in a shaft before rotation starts.
• It does not disturb the measured system by introducing friction
torque in the same way as do the first two methods described
• This method involves bounding four strain gauges onto a shaft as
seen in figure above, where the gauges are arranged in a d.c. bridge
circuit.
• The bridge circuit converts the torque applied to an electrical signal
which is a function of the strain in the shaft.

ME 343: Measurement and Instrumentation

Torque – Strain analysis of the shaft gauge assembly

• In the above figure we see:

1. The four stain gauges are mounted on two perpendicular
45⁰ helixes.
2. The strain gauges 1 and 3 are mounted on the right hand
helix and these are under elongation.
3. The strain gauges 2 and 4 are mounted on the left hand
helix and these are under compression.

ME 343: Measurement and Instrumentation

• The shearing stress τ on the circular shaft is given by
16T
  TD
                (1)
2J
D 3

• Where T = applied torque

• J = polar moments of inertia of the circular cross-section
• D = diameter of the shaft.
• If the shaft is acted upon by pure torque T about its polar axis,
the normal stress will be zero and the shear stresses will be
set up in directions perpendicular to the radius on all
transverse section, hence equation (2) is obtained
16T
 1   2   xz                   ( 2)
D 3

• Applying Hooke’s law the principal strains ϵ₁ and ϵ₂ are

obtained as
1 
1
 1   2   16T3  1                       (3)
E D  E 
ME 343: Measurement and Instrumentation
• Also
1 
2 
1
 1   2   16T3                  (4)
E D  E 
R
• However 
R

• Observing the installation of four strain gauges we write

R1 R R R 16T  1   
 2  3  4  3              (5)
R R2 R3 R4 D  E 

• Now the strain gauges are connected in a Wheatstone bridge

set up as seen below

ME 343: Measurement and Instrumentation

• Therefore from equation (5) , the unbalanced voltage of the
Wheatstone bridge can be expressed as
16T  1   
e0  3  E ex              (6)
D  E 
• Where
R1 R3 eo
 
R R3 E ex
D 3 E
T  e0                  (7 )
161   E ex

• Now Sτ is the yield strength of the shaft material, hence the

voltage ratio at the maximum torque
 e0 
 
•  E ex  max is expressed as follows

 e0  S  1   
                       (8)
 E ex  max E
ME 343: Measurement and Instrumentation
• Parameters in equations (1)-(7) are defined as
• R  Strain gauge resistance
•  Poisson’s ratio
• D  Shaft diameter
• E  Young’s Modulus of elasticity
• Strain
•   Gauge factor
•  Normal stress

Class work
• If S  4.14  10 8 N / m 2 , E  2.068  1011 N / m 2 ,  0.3,   2
Find  e0  in millivolt per volt.
 
 Eex  max

ME 343: Measurement and Instrumentation

 Home Work
• HW 1
• Determine the sensitivity of a torque cell if these parameters
are known
E  2.068  1011 N / m 2 ,  0.3,   2, E ex  8V , D  2.54cm, R  120
Hint: Manipulate equation (6) and (7) to obtain sensitivity

• If the sensitivity of a torque cell can be increased by increasing

the excitation voltage Eex . Determine the maximum sensitivity
that can be achieved without damaging the strain gauge when
each gauge dissipates 0.8W of power.

ME 343: Measurement and Instrumentation

 Force measurement using Two instruments
1. Accelerometer
• This instrument is used to measure transient forces, and also
for calibrating forces produced by thrust motors in space
vehicles. Below is a type of an accelerometer used in
aerospace studies.

ME 343: Measurement and Instrumentation

2. Vibrating wire sensor
• This sensor consists of a wire that is kept vibrating at its
resonant frequency by a variable frequency oscillator

ME 343: Measurement and Instrumentation

 Mass measurement using Five instruments
1.Electronic load cell
• Electronic load cell has to do with the application of
gravitational force on the body being measured to an elastic
element.
• The elastic element deflects according to the magnitude of
the body mass thereby translating the mass of the body to a
measurable displacement.
• Load cells including strain gauges are commonly used to
measure masses between 0 to 3000 tonnes due to its good
accuracy of ±0.05% of full-scale reading.

ME 343: Measurement and Instrumentation

2.Pneumatic load cell
• Pneumatic load cell translates mass measurement into
pressure task where the mass applied causes a deflection of
diaphragm which acts as a variable restriction in a nozzle-
flapper mechanism.
• The output pressure measured in the cell is proportional to
the magnitude of gravitational force on the applied mass.
Inaccuracy is typically 0.5% of full scale reading.
3.Hydraulic load cell
• Hydraulic load cells also translates mass measurement into
pressure task where the mass applied causes a deflection of
diaphragm but in this case the gravitational force due to the
unknown mass is applied via a diaphragm to oil contained
within an enclosed chamber. Its designed for measuring much
larger masses between 500 to 50000 tonnes with inaccuracy
of 0.05% of full scale reading.
• Lets see the next slide for a pictorial view.
ME 343: Measurement and Instrumentation
 Hydraulic load cell

• See the load cell here!!

ME 343: Measurement and Instrumentation

 Pneumatic load cell

ME 343: Measurement and Instrumentation

4.Intelligent load cell
• An intelligent weighing system can compute total cost from
the measured weight, using stored cost per unit weight
information and provides an output reading in the form of
digital display.

ME 343: Measurement and Instrumentation

5.Mass-weighing Instruments
• Beam balance
• In beam balance standard masses are added to a pan on one
side of a pivoted beam until the magnitude of the force of
gravity on the beam balances the magnitude of the
gravitational force of the unknown mass acting at the other
end of the beam. Typical inaccuracy is 0.002% and measures
up to 1000 grams.

ME 343: Measurement and Instrumentation

• Weigh beam balance
• It has a graduated bar where the pointer is brought to null
point as the known mass moves along a notched bar making
adjustments to balance the unknown mass.
• Versions of these instruments are used to measure masses up
to 50 tonnes.

ME 343: Measurement and Instrumentation

• Electromagnetic balance
• It uses the torque developed by a current-carrying coil
suspended in a permanent magnetic field to balance the
unknown mass against the known gravitational force
produced on a standard mass.
• Its advantages over beam balances, weigh beams and
pendulum scale include its smaller size, insensitivity to
environmental changes and its electrical form of output

ME 343: Measurement and Instrumentation

• Spring balance
• The unknown mass is measured against a scale by hanging it
on the end of the spring balance.
• Measurement inaccuracy is less than ±0.2% and masses
between 0.5kg and 10 tonnes can be measured.

ME 343: Measurement and Instrumentation

ME 343: Measurement and Instrumentation
 Next Class
• Flow Measurement

ME 343: Measurement and Instrumentation