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.

ITM gives back to UC’s future engineers

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ITM gives back to UC’s future engineers

The team at ITM spent half a day at the University of Cincinnati recently in an effort to invest in the next generation of engineers.

Integrated Test and Measurement President and Founder Tim Carlier volunteered to judge senior capstone projects developed by students in UC’s College of Engineering and Applied Science. Joining Carlier inside Great Hall of UC’s Tangeman University Center were Josh Fishback, ITM’s administrative director, and Chase Petzinger, a computer engineer with the Milford, Ohio, engineering firm. 

A few of the projects they judged included a Mars Rover prototype, a homemade emergency rescue drone and an autonomous object avoidance system that uses lidar technology to prevent crashes. 

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Josh Fishback of ITM Judging UC Senior Capstone Project
Tim Carlier of ITM Judging UC Senior Capstone Project

As a whole, ITM’s crew left campus feeling encouraged by the impressive engineering skills, presentation styles and ingenuity of UC’s students. For Carlier, a day like this is an opportunity to connect with young people entering the industry. While he is always on the lookout for potential co-op connections or to recruit talented employees, building relationships and supporting young engineers is the main objective. 

“These guys and gals are going to be out in the workforce, and they will have jobs that could use our services someday,” said Carlier. “It is exciting to see how well they are doing.” 

 For Fishback and Petzinger, both UC alumni and former track and field athletes, it was a chance to return to their alma mater.  

 “It is always good to come back and see how UC has progressed,” said Fishback, an accountant who graduated from UC’s Lindner College of Business. “I like seeing how the students carry themselves and how they present their senior design projects. I was pretty impressed.” 

Petzinger was excited to see his favorite professor’s name — Thomas Mantei — had been added to UC’s Engineering Research Center. He also found it helpful to learn what types of programming languages today’s students are favoring.  

“They are doing a lot more web-based machine learning now than when I was on campus,” said Petzinger. “It is pretty interesting to see the direction things are going. They knew their stuff. I didn’t have a single student stumble over a technical question that I gave them.” 

Carlier handed out business cards to those he engaged with and invited them to connect on LinkedIn so he could follow their career achievements.

For more information about Engineering or CO-OP positions at ITM 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.

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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.

Applying Modern Methods to Study Civil Structures

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Concrete Science: ITM Applying Modern Methods to Study Civil Structures

ITM has spent the last two decades testing the limits of steel, aluminum, composites, and other materials. From the heights of space to the depths of underground mines, our team has improved the art of using strain gauges to measure stress on metal, machines and complex systems. As the Milford, Ohio, firm enters its third decade, ITM engineers have returned to the lab to demonstrate some of the methods to measure rebar reinforced concrete using strain gauge technologies.

Concrete literally holds together much of our modern world, yet, many of our civil structures built in the mid-20th century are crumbling. From bridges to buildings, concrete is cracking and failing at an alarming rate, yet few are applying modern engineering methods to measure and monitor this foundational material we all rely upon.

As part of recent experiments, ITM staffers crafted test materials into mini concrete beams to illustrate how the materials hold up under stress and, more importantly, what it takes to capture the data. In our lab we placed 4-inch square by 18-inch long concrete beams under several thousand pounds of load using a hydraulic press. Gauges were affixed not only on the outside of the beams but also embedded inside the beam along the rebar used to reinforce the concrete. We used a laptop running our iTestSystem Software, an NI cDAQ-9171 Chassis, and NI-9236 modules to capture data from the strain gauges installed on the concrete specimens.

The data captured as the beams were brought to failure revealed the superiority of certain sensor bonding materials and methods during the testing. Importantly, it also showed that the stress along the internal rebar and that of the gauges on the outside of the concrete beams remained in sync as evidenced by the graphs that reveal the stress data.

Our team will continue these studies to show various methods currently being used to measure stress & strain in concrete structures and concrete crack propagation, the importance of which is only reinforced by news of deadly building collapses and aging civil structures. Stay tuned for more blogs detailing our findings and best practices for using today’s technology to measure structural concrete cracking.

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

Co-op Student Finds Home at ITM – Literally

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ITM Co-op Student Weston Graham with his Bus

Co-op Student Finds Home at ITM – Literally 

Weston Graham found a whole lot more than valuable job experience while co-oping at Integrated Test & Measurement (ITM). He also found his dream home — a 7-ton bus he would convert into a tiny house on wheels.

The University of Cincinnati aerospace engineering major had joined ITM on a NASA contract testing rocket components in Huntsville, Alabama, when a Facebook Marketplace search unearthed the ideal fixer-upper, a 1995 8-window International bus in his price range.

“I couldn’t find housing, and I didn’t want to pay $600 a month for rent,” he said. “I thought a bus would be fun.”

After all, Weston had the mechanical aptitude. Having spent his formative years tearing apart and selling enough go-karts to buy his first car, why not go big? Really big. Only problem was the bus he desired sat 3.5 hours away from his Huntsville hotel room. He talked a coworker into a midnight run through Alabama and eventually parked the bus in his parents Louisville, Kentucky driveway.

“It is the only school bus ever produced with a mechanical DT466 engine,” he fawned. “It is a wet-sleeve design, so you can actually change out the cylinders and rebuild the entire engine without ever taking it out of the vehicle.”

After months of driving home from ITM every weekend to rehab his Skoolie, he’s nearly finished with the RV conversion. With furniture, kitchen sink, bed, closets and more installed before Christmas, he had only some electrical and plumbing work left as he wrapped up his Fall co-op.

The student’s ingenuity was no surprise to the ITM team. The Milford, Ohio, engineering firm prides itself on landing co-ops who are problem solvers, then giving them real-world experience. In fact, CEO Tim Carlier believes deeply in giving students the same types of opportunities he received while in college.

While pursuing his mechanical engineering degree at Ohio University, Carlier worked summers and extended breaks at Manta Corp. in the early ’90s. At 19, he was scaling a roller coaster at Kings Island to instrument and test the ride overnight. It was extremely valuable experience, and he wants to pass it along to the next generation.

That’s why co-ops at ITM find themselves traveling the country on assignment, helping with research projects in the R&D lab or even scaling a massive recovery boiler to help the firm monitor and improve efficiencies in a pulp and paper plant.

For Weston, two co-ops at ITM gave him the opportunity of a lifetime.

“I was at the office getting acclimated and learning how to install strain gauges when they said, ‘Well, we have a contract with NASA down in Alabama , and we’d like to send you down there,’” he said. “I mean you can’t really ask for much more than that being a first-year aerospace engineering student. That was a really cool experience.”

In addition, he liked working at a firm where the company leaders are so accessible.

“I don’t think you would be able to say in most jobs as a student that you see the CEO every day and you talk with him and go out to lunch.”

For more information about co-op or other employment opportunities at ITM contact Josh Fishback at (844) 837-8797.

Happy Holidays 2021

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ï»żHappy Holidaysï»ż

A special thanks to all of our customers for helping make 2021 another successful year.  We want to wish you and your family a joyful holiday season with peace, health, and happiness in the coming year!

Integrated Test & Measurement

iTestSystem 20 Coming Soon!

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Coming Soon! iTestSystem 20.0

When: January 2022

The latest version of ITM’s engineering measurement software platform will make gathering data easier and more affordable than ever.

For more information about iTestSystem, contact Chase Petzinger at (844) 837-8797 x704 or via email at chase.petzinger@itestsystem.com.

Waveform Resampling in LabVIEW

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When measuring vibration and strain levels in LabVIEW, you work with a lot of waveform data.  Usually this waveform data needs to be resampled or quickly analyzed so it can be stored in databases and displayed as meaningful trends.  I put together the snippet below, so I could have easy access to the resampling and moving average waveform algorithms we commonly use.

For more information about this resample snippet, or our LabVIEW programming services contact Chase Petzinger @ (844) 837-8797 x704.

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…

Read more

LabVIEW Channel: Splitter Bars

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Figure 1: Example LabVIEW Front panel with Splitter Bars

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In some of my earlier LabVIEW channel blogs I showed how to use a subpanel to build scalable module user interfaces.  This blog describes another front panel layout tool for creating professional scalable user interfaces – the splitter bar.  Splitter bars allow the user to resize the adjacent panes while an application runs.  NI explains the functionality of configure of splitter bars here.

The labVIEW example described below shows how splitters can be moved programmatically to create clean professional user interfaces.  This VI contains five (5) controls/indicators and two (2) splitter bars on the front panel.  A listbox is used to select which channels are displayed in the graph, while a table displays each channel’s statistics.  Each splitter bar’s position is controlled by a radio button containing two buttons (left and right for the vertical splitter and up  and down for the horizontal splitter).  When a splitter control button is initially pressed, its respective splitter bar snaps to the edge of the window and hiding the listbox or table.  When pressed again, the respective splitter moves back to its original position revealing the listbox or table.

Figure 2: Programmatically move splitter bars.

Try the LabVIEW snippet above to see the splitter functionality.  When you drop this snippet into a new VI, you will have to add  vertical and horizontal splitters to the VI. See figure 1 for a reference for where to place the splitters. Right click on the splitter to get a reference to each splitter, left pane and bottom pane to run the VI.  Wire these references into the appropriate bundle function.  Set the graph to scale with panel.  Do not set the listbox and table to scale with pane.

For more information about this splitter example, or our LabVIEW programming services contact Mark Yeager @ (844) 837-8797 x7041.  You can also email me at mark.yeager@itestsystem.com if you would like me to send you the example vi or download it here.

Identify Damaging Events with Statistical Analysis

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Quickly Identify Significant Events in Large Data Sets with Statistical Analysis

Use statistical analysis for TestView Plus and Automated Analytics to extract statistics like minimum, maximum, and mean from each sensor.  The results of the selectable analysis is embedded within the data file as searchable meta data.

Automated Analytics users can quickly identify data files within large data sets that contain sensor events of interest.  When paired with Trigger Analysis and the Notification Service, these data files can be automatically selected and sent via email in remote monitoring applications.

About iTestSystem 

iTestSystem is an engineering measurement software platform that enables test engineers to organize, acquire, view, and analyze data from machinery, processes, vehicles and other complex systems.  iTestSystem was specifically designed for use with NI cDAQ or FieldDAQ hardware for data collection and data logging. 

For more information about our iTestSystem or ITM’s testing services, contact Ryan Welker @ (844) 837-8797 x702.