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Instron machine

Location & Access

The Design Lab has an Instron 4444 machine for tension and compression testing. It is located in the fenced-in space in the SE corner of the high bay. This room is open for the same hours as the other portion of the Capstone shop (the glassed in room) - NOT the IED hours.

Next to the machine is a paper sign-up sheet, first come first served. Please do not sign up for more time / slots than you need as this is a shared resource. Please remove your experiment promptly after use.

Specifications

Load cell is ±2kN. Instron quotes accuracy of ±0.025% of reading from 1% to 100% of full range.
http://www.instron.us/~/media/literature-library/products/2003/08/2530-400-series-load-cells.pdf?la=en

Usage / Operation

Machine can be configured for
  • compression or tensile testing
  • motion controlled via constant speed or constant force
  • uni-directional or reciprocal motion

Attached Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) reviews very basic setup and operation instructions. DesignLab_InstronSOP.docx

NOTE If you receive a "EDVR: Error connecting to driver or device" error when starting the LabVIEW recording program, try changing the GPIB address to "1:3" or "0:3"

MSL Lab Experiments

Documentation from four lab experiments used in the Mechanical Systems Lab are included below. These describe basic use cases for the machine