Hello Everyone! It has been a long time since the last post so let me fill you in on the progress that has been made. First, our Design Specialist, Phil has finished manufacturing the new drop weight. Not only is the height of the dropper platform adjustable but the whole system can be taken apart into two items for ease of transportation.

Our Simulation Analyst, Melissa, has been performing a wide series of model analysis using ANSYS to compare with the experimental data recorded from testing.

As for myself, I have been hard at work performing a wide variety of tests to prove the validity of this machine. The X and Y plane recording still require more work to be done as the sampling rate for the camera recording that surface might be too small. This has resulted in data significantly smaller than expected. However, the Z-Deformation recording has been providing very promising results so far. When compared to Melissa’s numerical models, our Z deformation tests have a 19.3% difference with a standard deviation of 0.035in from a sample size of 4 tests.

This has been an incredibly successful year, and hopefully the LVIT will continue to grow and improve over time. Thank you all for following us! Please enjoy some GIFs produced after testing!

Hello Everyone! Our team is back from winter break and looking forward to continue working on the LVIT! During our break we each spent time advancing in our respective areas.

Phil, our design specialist, had spent time working on the model and finalizing the SolidWorks drawings. Below is the model of our final design, which is much more open and features a motorized drop feed powered by an Arduino. Furthermore, he has also begun the process of ordering parts and we look forward to their arrival.

As the imaging specialist, I have spent the break re-working the code to allow greater flexibility, easier reading, more descriptive comments for next years team, and many more adjustments, updates, and additions. Most importantly, I have begun working on incorporating a 3-Dimensional analysis into the code. Initially, I will be assuming the Z-Deformation is uniform throughout each row. However I will be working on an alternative method which should result in greater accuracy. This method will be using perspective to determine the Z deformation by keeping track of the change in diameter of each dot.

Lastly, Melissa, our Simulations Analyst has been doing research into LS-DYNA, a software that is a part of ANSYS which is designed to calculate low velocity impacts. This should provide higher accuracy in the simulations when compared to Explicit Dynamics, the previous software. Melissa has been running simulations in both programs to determine how the two differ, and to confirm if LS-DYNA is sufficient for our research.

As this semester continues, we will be working hard to incorporate all of our individual work into one cohesive package. A heavy emphasis will be initially put on manufacturing before shifting into a focus on testing.

Please stay tuned for more updates soon to come!

Hello Everyone!

Now that the semester is coming to a close, I would like to inform you all about the changes we have already made and what we will be changing in the future. First off, our designer Phil has revamped the dropping mechanism, which will be adjustable and allow electronics to make the system more automated. The general Solid Works model can be seen below.

As for my work, I’ve decided on a new camera to be implemented in the system and have designed a new camera mount which will accommodate both cameras, and featuring and adjustable platform for our Go Pro height.

Lastly our theoretical analysis specialist has been hard at work creating different simulations for different striker inputs. Below is a small snippet of the type of impact a hemispherical impact would have on plastic specimen over a short period of time.

Over the break we all plan to work in our respective areas to accomplish more work. I will continue to work on our script, Phil will be learning Arduino skills for automation, and Melissa will continue to work on creating accurate theoretical simulations in ANSYS. All of this work will help us hit the ground running next semester.

I hope you all have a wonderful new year and we will update you all again soon!

Hello everyone and welcome to the LVIT Senior Project Page. Here will be updates and progress reports regarding the state of the project.