Student Projects
Please complete the following information
Contact Information
University and Department: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Team Members:Ron Carl, James Grzybek, Matt LaBounty, Karl Meyer, Graham Ostrander, Alexander Peach, John Petshe, Jonathan Proule
Faculty Advisors: Mark Anderson, Rich Alben
Primary Email Address: RC14882006@yahoo.com
Primary Telephone Number (include area and country code): 845.661.5702 US
Project Information
Project Title: Balance Assist System
List all parts (hardware, software, etc.) you used to design and complete your project:
NI Labview 8.6
NI DAQ USB 9239
AISI 1020 Steel plate
Honewell Lebow 3237
Acopian Power Supply 15Eb40
Describe the challenge your project is trying to solve.
Currently Electric Boat balances load of 1K-10K lbs in weight by hand and touch before Shock Testing. By doing so it takes trial and error and alot of time to ge the object balanced. It may take a few hours to a few days to finally finish balancing. The objective of the project is to deliver a working product that reduces this time by accurately determing the correct location of the object so that it is balanced in the X and Y coordinates witn in 25% of the time it currently takes. The system must be user friendly and cable of handling up to 10,000lbs loads
Describe how you addressed the challenge through your project.
We addressed the challenge by coming up with a digital system that will determine the inbalance and then after some mathmatical calculations, output the distance the load must move in each coordinate axis. We used NI Labview and a NI DAQ with Honeywell load cells to input data to the PC. Labview was then used as the Graphical User Interface in which other data could be entered in (load weight, type of test, weights of hold downs, etc). The final result was a working system that accurately balanced loads with in .5% accuracy.
Please upload photos below:
Load Cell Stand Assembly Each stand was waterjet cut, welded, CNC milled, sandblasted, and painted in house. They all were then CNC machined level.
Load cell Plunger Assembly Each plunger was CNC Cut in house
DAQ-Power source enclosure - Made in house
Mock Shock Machine used with Production Loadcell Stand Assemblies
Mock Shock Machine used with Prototype Stands and Load cells; Because we were limited to 75Lbs total weight (compared to the 10,000Lbs total weight at Electric Boat), we needed loadcells designed for our weight range yet with the same accuracy of the Honeywell Load cells. We used this set up to prove proof of concept and to help determine any errors that may be seen in the production version.
The RPI Balance Assist System Team Spring 2010
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