CLD – Ryan Matthews
Congratulations to Ryan Matthews on passing his National Instruments Certified LabVIEW Developer (CLD) examination. Good work Ryan!
ITM Blog Posts
The Blog Post category contains blog posts associated with ITM’s testing services, LabVIEW programming, Test & Measurement Hardware, Boiler Monitoring Systems, and iTestSystem applications.
NIWeek 2016 – Marquette University’s “Smart Building”
Special thanks to the Penny Write, Tommy Glicker, Chris Davis, Rob Reichmeider, and the rest of the NI Team for allowing us to take part in your DAQ pavilion at NIWeek 2016. See you next spring!
Marquette University’s “Smart Building” Provides Real-World Data
MILFORD, OH– Integrated Test & Measurement (ITM) announces a “Smart Building” program in partnership with Marquette University. This unique initiative allows next generation structural engineers to perform large-scale experiments and obtain real-time results using data collected on the very building in which they are learning. ITM was selected to provide the technology and services for the program.
Powerful Software – Powerful Results
The system is powered by ITM’s configurable iTestSystem software platform. The software allows users to organize, acquire and view important engineering data using National Instruments (NI) hardware. Using iTestSystem, a building monitoring system was created to collect data from a weather station together with more than 120 strain gauge sensors installed along beams, braces and columns inside the Engineering Hall at Marquette University.
The system not only measures wind speed on the five story structure; it can actually “feel” the wind load during gusts and record its impact on the facility. Data is broadcast in real time to anyone plugged into the servers through their mobile device. Observing the data allows students to understand how a building’s systems “share lateral load” during wind events. In addition, instruments along support beams in the Engineering Materials and Structural Testing lab allow students to analyze moving loads as the crane moves around the bay. At the same time floor sensors measure the impact of people moving through the building. This information will impact future building design and potential building code modifications.
For more information, visit https://3.133.116.34
Engineering on the fringe of big data
As test engineers, we are driven by data. It motivates everything we do. The faster we can gather, manage and analyze vast amounts of data, the more effective and efficient we become at understanding the stresses that tax modern machinery.
That is why I’m excited to share some of the recent advances Integrated Test & Measurement (ITM) has made as it relates to our large channel synchronized count monitoring systems.
In many ways, we are hitting the extreme fringes in terms of gathering big data, and these developments have all been made possible by our proprietary iTestSystem software.
(Download a free version of our base software.)
Test Engineering Extremes using iTestSystem and NI cDAQ
- Collecting and managing terabytes of data during month’s long test
- Synchronizing 25 NI 9188 cDAQ chassis to collect more than a thousand (1000) channels of strain, acceleration, temperature, voltage and current data
- Gathering data from on-board systems such as CAN, CCP and customized machine PLC protocols in the same data file as analog data
- Collecting high voltage and contact temperature data using isolated amplifiers at one megahertz (1MHz)
Driven by the opportunity to engineer tests for both the rail industry and heavy machinery manufacturers, our team has been able to collect, manage and monitor terabytes of synchronized data during month’s long tests.
The process includes designing and installing data acquisition (DAQ) systems to gather more than a thousand channels of strain, acceleration, temperature, voltage and current data — all at once. Where before we had gathered a couple hundred channels of synced data, we’ve now passed the thousand-count mark. (Incidentally, the manufacturer of our cDAQ hardware platform informed us that our high-channel-count tests are more than double any other application of which they are aware.)
Beyond the volume of channels, we’ve also been able to harvest data from high voltage sources at extreme data rates. One of our colleagues even used iTestSystem to collect 16 channels of data from high voltage sources at 500kHz.
In addition, our engineers have been able to run these tests while at the same time gathering data from on-board systems such as CAN, CCP and customized machine PLC protocols — an advance that allows our clients to gain an even more complete picture of the precise environment at work in their machinery.
ITM Adds New Talent
We have had a busy summer at ITM coordinating multiple exciting projects, but among our biggest successes has been expanding our team.
I’m excited to announce that we’ve grown our engineering group by two with the addition of Ryan Matthews and Matt Satcher. Ryan is serving as a field engineer and a vibration analyst, and his main responsibilities include providing on-site installation and support, developing algorithms to process complex vibration data and designing custom control panel assemblies.
Matt is working as a system/component designer and field engineer for ITM, and he is also designing custom panel assemblies and rugged data acquisition systems along with providing on-site installation and support for customers.
You can read more about our entire team here, but here are some some additional details about Ryan and Matt:
- Ryan Matthews is a recent graduate from the University of Cincinnati with a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering. During his time at UC, he completed 5 co-op semesters designing and testing high temperature vibration and temperature sensors for turbine engine environments. He conducted many small-scale vibration experiments and also performed modal analyses on military helicopters to investigate alternate positions of the Health and Usage Monitoring Systems (HUMS) sensors.
- Matt Satcher previously worked at a large aerospace company in Madrid, Spain, in the stress analysis department. While there, he was responsible for design work with CATIA, performing finite element analyses on the vertical tail of the A350XWB, and the structural design verification of a prototype jet engine. Matt holds a Bachelor of Science in Aerospace Engineering from Saint Louis University.
We welcome both of these talented men to ITM.
iTestSystem: TestView Plus
Watch this video to learn how to plot data in TestView Plus. TestView Plus is the tdms data graphing and analysis application for iTestSystem.
iTestSystem: Running MultiDAQ
Watch this video to learn how to collect data, configure real-time data graphs, and view sensor data in the iTestSystem MultiDAQ application.
MultiDAQ is the configurable iTestSystem data acquisition and logging application. Users can start and stop data collecting manually or with sensor threshold triggering. All data collected with MultiDAQ is saved in standard tdms file format.
iTestSystem: MultiDAQ Configuration
Watch this video to learn how to configure MultiDAQ!
MultiDAQ is the configurable iTestSystem data acquisition and logging application. Users can start and stop data collecting manually or with sensor threshold triggering. All data collected with MultiDAQ is saved in standard tdms file format.
iTestSystem: Update Service
Watch this video to learn how to use the iTestSystem Update Service. The Update Service application is used to retrieve program and application updates from the iTestSystem Cloud Server.
For more information about the Update Service or iTestSystem, contact Chase Petzinger via email: chase.petzinger@itestsystem.com or phone: (844) 837-8797 x704
iTestSystem: Registration
Check out this video that shows how to register the free version of iTestSystem. Fill out a form with you name and email address and then receive a registration for the free version of iTestSystem.
ITM provides software development, structural and mechanical testing services, industrial monitoring, strain gauging, and data analysis solutions to clients on six continents. ITM is a recognized National Instruments Gold Alliance Partner.
