Research On Horizontal Multi-Component Force Measurement Stand

Force measurement is essential in various essential applications.The applications varying from simple weight checking to the heavy thrust measurement of rockets.Force measurement is very useful in tool condition monitoring and rocket motor testing mainly.The measurement systems also vary according to the application.It can be very simple as the weight measuring machine and can also be complex with many components integrated to combine the whole measurement system.the force measurement component is a very important part of the measurement system.In this study,a six-degree of freedom force/thrust measurement stand is designed.The stand is analyzed theoretically and experimentally.Thrust testing units with a piezoelectric dynamometer have unique traits such as excessive stiffness,tremendous measurement accuracy,dynamic performance,no hysteresis,and so on.These are widely used in the applications requiring force/thrust measurements in the aerospace industry and high-end tool condition monitoring.The performance of these units is necessary to be evaluated.In this study,a six-degree of freedom force/thrust measurement stand is proposed and analyzed theoretically and experimentally.The measurement stand is a structural component capable of measuring six components of force/thrust such as axial force/thrust and other components.Piezoelectric force sensor units are used in this study because of unique dynamic properties and high stiffness The test stand consists of seven piezoelectric units divided into two sections.The front part consists of four piezoelectric force units,while the rear part consists of three piezoelectric force units.The rear section is hexagonal with three sensors mounted at 120° from each other.The measurement stand is capable of measuring the principal force/thrust more than 50,000 N.A mathematical model is derived for the output of every sensor against applied force in all directions.To calibrate the stand,a calibration platform is designed and fabricated.The calibration platform consists of various loading setups to replicate rocket motions.Standard sensors are installed in each loading setup to monitor and record all applied forces/moments.The calibration platform can generate a range of forces/moments.Calibration experiments performed to verify that the measurement stand is fairly functional to measure a variety of forces/moments.FEM analysis,mathematical model,and calibration experiments indicate that the designed measurement stand has high repeatability,linearity,and low cross talk errors.Experimental results verify that the repeatability,linearity,and crosstalk errors are less than 5% FSO.The measurement stand is verified to be useful in real applications of force/thrust testing.