This project proposes to educate undergraduate students in the selection, installation and use of mechanical sensors and transducers interfaced with a microcomputer, accomplished through the modernization and enhancement of an existing sophomore Manufacturing Processes Laboratory. The project focuses on the fundamental mechanical quantities of importance to the manufacturing processes of milling, turning, drilling and grinding. Through a series of four new experiments, students learn about mechanical transducers and specifically the use of force and torque transducers with computerized data acquisition for the monitoring of forces, torques and vibrations. They visualize the difference between static and dynamic loading and are able to corroborate the related lecture material on cutting forces, energy and chatter. The major equipment includes two piezoelectric load rings for experiments on static and dynamic force measurements, a piezoelectric dynamometer suitable for milling, turning and grinding for applied experiments on cutting forces and energy, a piezoelectric dynamometer suitable for drilling for applied experiments on cutting torques and energy, four charge amplifiers to support the piezoelectric transducers, a microcomputer-based data acquisition system and software for real-time monitoring of the data.
