Off-Highway 

The Off-Highway category contains case studies and blogs related to off-highway, mining and construction machinery/vehicle engineering and testing services.

ITM Recruiting Full-Time Engineers at UC’s Fall Career Fair

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ITM Recruiting Full-Time Engineers at UC’s Fall Career Fair

University of Cincinnati students have an enormous opportunity to make a career-changing connection during the Professional and Technical Career Fair on Thursday, September 15.

Integrated Test & Measurement (ITM) will host a booth during Technical Day 2 of the event at UC’s Campus Recreation Center. Interested students can find ITM representatives from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Our firm is interested in filling full-time roles for students graduating with a degree in mechanical engineering, mechanical engineering technology, electrical engineering, electrical engineering technology and aerospace engineering.

In addition to seeking full-time hires, we are searching for talented students who are interested in experiencing a dynamic and fulfilling co-op opportunity where you will have a chance to learn through exciting, hands-on engineering projects around the country.

ITM is a structural test & measurement engineering service and software company in Milford, Ohio,  that focuses on three vertical spaces: Industrial Monitoring, Testing Services, and our configuration based test software, iTestSystem.

ITM offers competitive compensation and benefits and a career filled with travel and new learning opportunities. ITM was founded by Tim Carlier in 2001 to help companies around the world reduce costs and improve efficiencies in their product development, manufacturing and production activities.

Interested candidates should stop by our booth inside UC’s Campus Recreation Center from10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Thursday Sept. 15 and/or email a resume and cover letter to: josh.fishback@itestsystem.com.

Our team will also be drawing for free hats and T-shirts, so be sure to find us during the event to learn more about ITM.

Printed Circuit Board Strain Testing – JEDEC-9704A

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ITM Employs JEDEC-9704A to Test Strain on Printed Circuit Boards 

ITM Employs JEDEC-9704A to Test Strain on Printed Circuit Boards

ITM Employs JEDEC-9704A to Test Strain on Printed Circuit Boards 

Every modern electronic device includes at least one printed circuit board, so it stands to reason that these intricate parts fail at times due to stress and strain. 

When that happens, manufacturers know they can turn to ITM’s test engineers who can develop tests to help get to the bottom of their circuit board problems. For some, the failures are happening in the field, and for others, it’s the manufacturing process that’s overstressing the parts that make all our gadgets go. 

Engineer Ryan “RJ” Matthews said ITM has decades of experience with printed circuit boards (PCBs), including circuit board design and development. So, strain gauge testing on PCBs using JEDEC-9704A, the global standard for microelectronics, is a natural progression for the team. 

Matthews has led recent projects in which ITM helped companies determine how much strain and stress their PCB is experiencing both in the field and during the assembly process. Simulating the assembly process can be a daunting challenge, particularly if that process includes variables such as high heat, as it did in a recent example. 

Still, the team was able to instrument the circuit board effectively and replicate every assembly step while also gathering crucial strain data, which they reported back to the client. The challenging test environment isn’t unlike ITM’s typical rugged data acquisition projects, just on a much smaller scale. The firm specializes in strain gauge data collection on everything from behemoth off-road machinery to miniscule gadgetry. 

Matthews said the team often employs NI c-DAQ hardware combined with ITM’s proprietary iTestSystem software, which allows them to easily configure PCB tests to collect and analyze the data. iTestSystem’s Rosette Analysis tool is used to calculate the principal strain, principal strain angle, shear strain, principal stress, and other values from strain gauge rosette data. 

For more information on this work, our strain gauge testing services or iTestSystem, contact: Ryan Welker – Integrated Test & Measurement (ITM), LLC – ryan.welker@itestsystem.com 

ITM Co-op Helps Engineering Student Set Sights Even Higher 

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ITM Co-op Helps Engineering Student Set Sights Even Higher 

Tyler House’s dream career began to come into sharper focus during his spring co-op at Integrated Test & Measurement.

After four months at the Milford, Ohio, firm the University of Cincinnati electrical engineering student headed into his summer feeling both excited by his work experience and inspired to emulate ITM CEO Tim Carlier one day by starting his own company.

“I know I want to do something I love,” said Tyler, who had just returned from a trip to Disney with his girlfriend to celebrate the end of the semester. “I’d like to start my own company someday. I’ve been poking at that idea. Definitely a big dream of mine is having that freedom and doing something that means a lot to me.”

Perhaps the only thing that equals Tyler’s love of engineering is his love of music. He and a few fellow graduates from Clermont Northeastern (CNE) high school started a band called Wishbone, which has started lining up local gigs to cover rock and blues tunes stretching back a half century.

Tyler’s two worlds collided on the last day of his co-op when a couple of engineers from ITM dropped into his band’s “first bonafide show.”

“It was so much fun watching their reaction,” said Tyler, who employs his electrical engineering skills to repair the band’s gear when things inevitably break. “I love that they came.”

Coincidentally, like Wishbone, ITM’s entire leadership team — the CEO, VP of Operations, Lead Programmer and Administrative Director — are all CNE graduates. For Tyler, seeing that level of success from the same small high school as him was only more of a confidence lift.

He loves the entrepreneurial and inventive culture at ITM, where staff members are constantly tackling new challenges. “It’s really just a great place to figure out what you are into,” he said.

Tyler found himself learning a ton about Fusion 360, a cloud-based 3D modeling program, while researching mechanical properties and simulating failure modes on a bolted joint. He said he spent about half his co-op in the office doing things like assembling Data Acquisition (DAQ) boxes and the other half on the road working on-site. Experiences included everything from climbing inside massive paper mills to helping gather data on equipment operating in remote locations all over the country.

“In talking with my friends who have had co-ops, it’s hard to get to work in a place where you feel like you can make a difference and actually help fix problems,” said Tyler. “I definitely felt that. I learned really fast about how to deal with mistakes and just general problem solving.”

Besides the on-the-job learning, he loved exploring new places, national parks and more with the ITM crew after hours. He’s hoping to pick up some work helping ITM with any projects through the summer, and he’s interested in returning during his next co-op rotation in Spring of 2023.

Meanwhile, he’ll keep poking at his dream of someday owning his own company.

“You just have to go out there and get it,” Tyler said. “If you are aggressive about it, you will fail a bunch. But you’ve got to be able to get up off the ground and just keep rolling with it.”

For more information about Co-op or employment opportunities at ITM, contact Josh Fishback via email at josh.fishback@itestsystem.com or phone at (844) 837-8797 x705.

Modern Tools Series: What’s In The Box?

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Modern Tools Series: What’s In The Box? 

This box reveal may not be quite as dramatic as the ending of “Seven,” the ’95 serial killer thriller that blew moviegoers’ minds, but the ITM team is throwing open the latches nonetheless. 

In this case, our team is taking you on a quick tour of a recently deployed Rugged Data Acquisition System. These particular black boxes of tech are riding around on high-dollar fracking equipment to remotely monitor all sorts of triggering events. Our crew builds them on the regular, and the end result is that our clients can better understand what sorts of stress, strain and vibration is taking place both en-route to their site and once operations begin.  

ITM is known for building rugged measurement systems and data logging solutions that are deployed on everything from Class A trucks, to well frac trailers, to dam and bridge structures, oil pipelines, gensets, boilers and more.

So, without further ado, what’s in the box?  

We recommend a handful of essential components and elements if you are looking to build your own rugged measurement system:

  • An Industrial Embedded PC. We love the Nuvo-7000LP. Another favorite is the Advantech UNO-2484G-9S55. 
  • You’ll need industrial grade connectivity, and you can’t beat Peplink’s cellular router options. And remember to outfit that unit with an AT&T or Verizon plan and get that activated card installed. 
  • A remote desktop application is a must, and we usually turn to LogMeIn for our remote access and file management. This allows us to pull up any of our units no matter where they are in the world to check in on status or grab some data for our clients. 
  • Speaking of data, depending on your job, you’ll likely need lots of data storage capability. Our preference is a 2 terabyte USB drive, which gives us an almost unlimited amount of space. If needed, we can store about six months worth of data before hitting capacity.
  • Since our industrial PC is running Windows, we use iTestSystem, our proprietary engineering measurement software platform that enables test engineers to organize, acquire, view, and analyze data from machinery, processes, vehicles and other complex systems.
  • To complete the box, our industrial PC is connected to an NI c-DAQ outfitted with strain, vibration and voltage modules.
  • What about power you ask? In our fracking instance, we connected to an alternator which charges a bank of batteries in the RAC. 

So there you have it. That’s what’s in the box. Build your own, or get in touch with our team, and we’ll customize a system for your specific needs.  

We also install and service all of our equipment. So if something breaks in the field, we can get you back up and collecting data or even assist with data analysis.

For more information about our rugged data acquisition systems, on-site system deployment or data analysis services, contact Josh Fishback via email at josh.fishback@itestsystem.com or phone at (844) 837-8797 x705.

 

Endless Testing Options Through Finite Element Analysis (FEA) 

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Design Validation Finite Element Analysis

Design Validation Finite Element Analysis (FEA) using strain gauge measurements.



Endless Testing Options Through Finite Element Analysis (FEA) 

Whether our customers need us to validate their Finite Element Analysis (FEA) models or perform both the physical testing and the FEA, our engineers are used to helping customers with complex testing and analysis of high-value equipment. 

As a recent example, our team is involved in a large-scale project to do engine testing for a client that requires ITM to do both the physical testing as well as the FEA simulations. This requires using a custom high-channel count telemetry system to transmit engine data to a receiver that is sampling at an extremely high rate. 

“Once you are able to bring in the test data and compare it to the simulated data, you are able to fine tune your FEA simulation to better reflect the real-world application,” said ITM engineer Ryan Matthews. “We can also simulate the test in software and predict how it is going to react to the test when we can actually measure such things as strain, stress and vibration.” 

Matthews points out that FEA technology also helps the team determine the precise best placement of strain gauge during physical testing. And depending on complexity, a single simulation can take a few seconds or months to run. 

For obvious reasons — mainly the cost of bringing high-value assets to failure — running repeated strain gauge tests on components simply isn’t feasible, but ITM’s in-house capabilities and close partnership with sister firm SixDOF opens up endless FEA simulation options to clients. 

“Sometimes you are only going to be able to test a structure or a part once before it fails,” says Matthews. “So it becomes crucial to do a limited number of physical tests then correlate that to your FEA. Then you can pretty much run unlimited simulations.” 

For more information about our testing, strain gauging, and FEA modeling services contact Ryan Welker via email at ryan.welker@itestsystem.com of phone @ (844) 837-8797.

ITM Helps Miami University Students Succeed SAE Baja

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The students and advisors huddled around the computer react as they watch the signal yield an immediate spike within ITM’s iTestSystem software…

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Vehicle Component Testing

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…more than a thousand miles away. A display of gauges, needles and dials showed precisely how their product performed during every day over-the-road stress.

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Collect Vehicle CAN Bus data with NI 9862 and iTestSystem

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Automotive and off-highway engineers and designers often need to log vehicle bus data along with vibration, strain gauge, and other sensor data during normal operation to evaluate their design.  Using data from all these sources enables these engineers and designers to pinpoint a vehicle’s response to staged or damaging events.  For example, engineers can see how steering wheel position and speed effect structural response when the vehicle hits a pothole.

How does steering wheel position and speed effect structural response when the vehicle hits a pothole?

In situations where our engineers need to tap into the vehicle’s on-board diagnostics using CAN bus data and analog sensor data to identify and solve a problem, we will deploy a rugged measurement solution based on NI CompactDAQ (cDAQ) hardware.  These systems usually include an industrial compact pc or standalone cDAQ running the iTestSystem engineering measurement application.  iTestSystem logs data from the vehicle bus connected to NI 9862 CAN module and other analog sensors connected to NI cDAQ modules like NI 9234, NI 9236, and NI 9229 into one data file.

NI 9862 CAN Module Specifications and Connections

According to the NI data sheet, the NI 9862 modules is a single CAN port device that is isolated from the other modules in the system. The port has a Bosch DCAN CAN controller that is CAN 2.0B-compatible and fully supports both 11-bit and 29-bit identifiers. The port also has an NXP TJA1041AT High-Speed CAN transceiver that is fully compatible with the ISO 11898 standard and supports baud rates up to 1 Mbps.  This module requires +9 to +30 VDC supply voltage to operate.

The table below shows the connections between the NI 9862 9 pin D-Sub and the SAE J1962 connector that are required for CAN communication.  NI sells a OBDII9M-DB9F CAN Cable cable if you don’t want make your own cable.

iTestSystem CAN Channel Setup

Setting up a vehicle CAN bus connection can be difficult, especially if you need to acquire non-standard, proprietary messages and frames.  iTestSystem simplifies this setup by leveraging the NI XNET and CAN drivers to view and configure CAN bus data, import databases, and assign scale factors. iTestSystem then allows users to browse and choose which CAN signals to acquire.

For more information about collecting CAN bus data with an NI 9862 and iTestSystem, or our testing services, contact Chase Petzinger via email at chase.petzinger@itestsystem.com or phone at (844) 837-8797 x704

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