J ÖN K ÖP IN G U N IV E R S IT Y

S c h o o l o f E n g i n e er i n g

Master Thesis

Development, Validation and

Implementation of Universal Testing

Machine

Stephen Jose Mathew

Vijay Francis

Jönköping University
School of Engineering
Department of Product Development ˆ June 2019
This thesis has been carried out at the School of Engineering, Jönköping University, in
the subject area Mechanical Engineering. The authors answer themselves for opinions,
conclusions and results.
Examiner: -
Supervisors: Mirza Cenanovic
David Samvin
Scope: 30 credits
Date: 2020-08-13

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 Abstract
The thesis paper will be covering the grounds of what, how and why a Universal
Testing Machine is used, an alternative to the generic Universal Testing Machine
designs and how it is built. The primary objective of this thesis work is to design
and build a Universal Testing Machine which can handle a load up to 10kN for
polymer materials which is cost eective and modular. The operating system and
electronic components are open-source leaving room for further development and
compression test.
The mechanical properties of material can be measured through tensile test. It
gives the the characteristic of tensile strength, yield strength, modulus of elasticity,
ductility, resilience, and toughness. The thesis paper covers the use of real time
image processing for calculating and plotting of a stress strain curve. It also covers
the implementation of open source code, using a MATLAB user interface to control,
analyse and compile the results of tests done using the new machine. These results
have been compared to values obtained from a standard Universal Testing machine
and thus validated.
As the machine is modular, the parts can be swapped with better components
that ts the requirement, leaving the possibility for easy upgrades in the future.

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Acknowledgments
We would like to express our sincere gratitude towards Jönköping School of Engineering,
Assistant Professor Mirza Cenanovic, Jönköping University, Assistant Professor David
Samvin, Jönköping University Jönköping, for providing us with the incredible opportunity
to this project work and for their excellent guidance during our work. We would also like to
thank Jacob Steggo, Development Engineer, Jönköping University, and Mr.Esbjorn Ollas,
Laboratory Technician, Jönköping University for their valuable support and assistance
during various stages during the construction and testing of UTM. Our two year Master's
program is coming to an end and we would like to thank each and every person who has
helped or supported us during our journey. Thank you.
- Stephen Jose Mathew & Vijay Francis

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Contents
1 Introduction 6

2 Background Information 7
2.1 Objective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

3 Problem Description 10

4 Research Questions 11

5 Theoretical background 12
5.1 Design And Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
5.1.1 SOLIDWORKS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
5.1.2 MATLAB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
5.1.3 Hardware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
5.1.4 Lead Screw . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
5.1.5 Round And Hexagon Nuts, and built in Flange Nuts: . . . . . . . 18
5.1.6 Contact bearings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
5.1.7 Load Cell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
5.1.8 Stepper Motor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
5.1.9 Stepper Motor Driver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
5.1.10 Planetary GearBox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
5.2 Electronics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
5.2.1 ARDUINO Board . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
5.3 Circuitry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
5.3.1 Steps on calibration of load cell: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
5.4 MATLAB Coding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
5.4.1 Image Processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
5.4.2 APPS Needed To Be Installed In MATLAB For This Project . . . 30
5.4.3 Image Tracking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
5.5 Camera . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
5.5.1 Camera Lens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

6 Results 34
6.1 Final Prototype Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
6.2 Gripper Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
6.3 Frame / Assembly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
6.4 Setting Up Of Electrical Connections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
6.4.1 Electric Connections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
6.4.2 Arduino MATLAB communication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
6.4.3 Plotting Graph . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
6.5 Control System For UTM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
6.5.1 Graphical User Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
6.5.2 GUI Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
6.5.3 User Interface controls (UI controls) and Properties . . . . . . . . . 43
6.6 Final Product . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
6.6.1 Working Video . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
6.7 Comparison for Accuracy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

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 6.7.1 Setting up of Standard UTM for comparison testing . . . . . . . . . 50
6.7.2 Comparison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

7 Discussion 55

8 Conclusion and Future work 56

References 57

9 Appendix 60
9.1 Load cell Specication DATA sheet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
9.2 Digital camera and its specications DATA sheet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
9.3 Torque Calculations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
9.4 Planetary Gearbox DATA Sheet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
9.5 Stepper motor control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
9.6 Circuit Diagram . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
9.7 Code for calibration button . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
9.8 Detailed settings for 3D printer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
9.9 ASTM Standards for samples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

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1 Introduction
The selection of a material to make a product is done based on the various characteristics
and properties exhibited by the material in various conditions, forces and environment.
To quantify the material property for a person who is not too familiar with it, a standard
testing method is brought into play and for this a Universal Testing Machine is used.
The conventional UTM machines built by companies are not exactly cost eective or user
friendly. And at times high capacity machines do not register low measurements values
[20].

Figure 1: Universal testing machine and its parts

More over most of the old generation UTM's use hydraulic or pneumatic drive systems
and controlled using old and outdated interface and software, making them hard to be
integrated to any new systems or giving them a much needed upgrade. These machines use
an extensometer to measure the change in length. The conventional UTM's are extremely
bulky, so they take up a considerable amount of space and cannot be moved or relocated
once they are xed and calibrated for a position.
The objective of this thesis project is to develop, validate and deploy an open source,
universal testing machine that consists of aordable and readily accessible parts that
can either be 3D printed or can be easily machined in house for the university. The
steps involved would include CAD designing, manufacturing and assembling of parts,
PCB coding, optical imagery using a high resolution camera, followed by controlling and
processing by a MATLAB Graphical User Interface.

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2 Background Information
Tensile testing, is a fundamental materials science test in which a test piece of a material
is subjected to a controlled tension until failure. The results from the test is commonly
used to select a material for an application depending on the requirements and to predict
how a material will perform or behave under other types of force. The properties that are
directly measured via a tensile test are ultimate tensile strength, maximum elongation and
reduction. The following properties can also be determined: Young's modulus, Poisson's
ratio, yield strength, and strain-hardening characteristics. Uni-axial tensile testing is the
most commonly used for obtaining the mechanical characteristics of isotropic materials.
For an-isotropic materials, such as composite materials and textiles, bi-axial tensile testing
is required. So to carry out such type of testing Universal Testing Machines (UTM) are
used to carry out tensile test, compression & bending test.
The testing machine is designed to determine the stress strain curves of polymer mate-
rials such as polymers and particularly metallic lms deposited onto polymeric substrates.
Dierent methods have been proposed to investigate the mechanical properties of these
thin materials. As is shown in Figure 1, the testing machine is composed of ve main
parts: i) the main frame, ii) the drive system, iii) the movable cross-head, iv) the load
cell, and v) the digital indicator.
JTH needs a dedicated universal testing machine for mechanical testing of polymers
and ber reinforced polymers. The current testing machines are mainly used for metallic
materials and require time to set up for polymer testing. Another issue is that the current
machine is often in use, therefore another machine is needed to allow for parallel testing.
The current machine uses commercial software and does not allow for easy updates of
hardware or software. The objective of this project is to develop and validate an open
source, universal testing machine that consists of cheap and readily accessible parts where
many parts are 3D printed and/or easily machined in house. The software will also be
developed in house and kept on public repository's as open source.
The proposed master thesis is to build a robust and accurate Universal testing ma-
chine for polymer samples at a relatively low budget, initially for tensile and compression
tests. The proposed design is modular, extremely cost ecient and has a very low initial
investment to make. And since the interface and control system are being designed based
on open-source software, future upgrading can be done with ease. For measuring the load
on a sample (compression), a load cell is used and for strain an optical method is used
(camera with a physical extension meter and laser). The test machine will have a 10 kN
load cell with a factor of safety of 1.5. For the tensile testing the test piece will be marked
on the surface and a high resolution camera will be used to capture the images at specic
time intervals, these images will be analysed in real time using MATLAB to get the stress
strain curve.
One of the major aws encountered while using the commercial machine was that the
control program used to run it based on outdated software and coding with no technical
support or prospect for upgrade. The current interface was made using programming
languages like C++, Java Scrips from back in 2000-2001 which can be supported by
Windows Xp which was made on Windows NT Kernel which is a 1990's platform. And
since it is so ancient the UI is not supported by any modern operating system and so
needs a dedicated system with older drivers to run on. This severely limits the capability
of analysis as modern analysis programs cannot be integrated or run along side it. And
it doesn't have any advanced option to do an in-depth comparison results or to export

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the obtained results and graph to a dierent platform or format. Moreover the camera
system used is rudimentary and can only track specic section of a test piece and not as
a whole.
Since the machine is specically for polymers, the test pieces would have a limitation
as to have specic dimensions. The test piece standards can be seen in the picture below
which is from a research paper [20][4].
The background data required for the project work was collected based mostly on
1 2
Grey Literature provided on web sites like github and Youtube channel CNC Kitchen ,
design and data provided by them have been extensively analysed and modied to meet
the requirements on. The design inspiration was taken from a model built by Stefan rom
CNC kitchen[10].

1 https://github.com/CNCKitchen/Open-Pull
2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvn-J8CbtzM

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2.1 Objective
The primary Objective is to design and manufacture a cost eective and modular tensile
testing machine with up-gradable option using relatively low cost and readily available
materials in workshop. The machine would be run using open source code with a Graphical
User Interface made using MATLAB.
The other objectives to keep in mind while designing the machine:
1) Camera : instead of conventional measuring instruments like extensometer the
new machine will be using a optical instrument(a high resolution camera) to measure
the change in length using real time image processing technology. This actually gives a
slight advantage for the new machine over the old one as a image tracking technology can
measure and detect even minute change in length.
2) Image analysis : The acquired images should be analysed and strain computed.
3) Graph plotting : The change in length is calculated by MATLAB from the frames
acquired and the stress values from the load cell are compiled to for plot the stress vs
strain graph.
4) Graphical user interface (GUI) : A GUI made using MATLAB will be used to
control the tests and display results.
All the designs,blueprints, building plans, electrical circuitry diagrams, codes and GUI
for system control would be uploaded to Github.com making it available for the public
to modify and improve upon.

Figure 2: Camera and load cell used

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3 Problem Description
The UTM that is currently in JTH is which has a capacity of 100kN and operates using
an electrical drive mechanism. For normal polymers this capacity is too high and in
many cases wont even register any change in load application. When such cases occur
huge changes in settings is required to get an accurate reading and correct graph. There
has been instances where 3D printed samples were tested on the machine and the values
obtained were either too low or highly uctuating in general. The UTM uses a wedge
clamp mechanism which is self centering but has a tendency to crush delicate polymer
test pieces when trying to perform any test. Due to this issue sometimes external grippers
are put in place to hold the test-pieces. This call for a new design, at a low investment
and modular Universal Testing machine for JTH.

Figure 3: Inspirational Design for the new UTM

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4 Research Questions
The two main research questions that needs to be tackled:

1. How to design a low investment and upgrade-able universal testing machine to test
polymer samples in compression and tension to get a stress strain curve?

2. How to verify the accuracy of the machine and how well does it perform when
compared with a standardized UTM?

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5 Theoretical background
The engineering tensile test is also known as tension test which vary widely used for pro-
viding the base of the design information on the strength of material and as an acceptance
test for the specication of the materials. Tensile tests are very simple, relatively, inexpen-
sive, and fully standardized. Under the pulling type of loading a material, it can be very
quickly determined how the material will react to the these type of forces being applied in
tension. As the materials are being pulled, its strength and elongation can be found out.
A lot about a substance can be learned from tensile testing. As the machine continues
to pull on the material until it breaks, a good, complete tensile prole can be obtained.
The stress - strain curve shows how the material reacts to the force being applied. In
the tension test a specimen is subjected to a continually increasing one directional tensile
force while simultaneous observations are made of the elongation of the specimen.
The resulting output from such a test is recorded as load versus displacement/elon-
gation and can be graphically displayed as a load - elongation curve. Load - elongation
curve is then converted to engineering-stress versus engineering-strain curve to evaluate
the tensile properties of materials. Very often engineering-stress versus engineering-strain
curves need to be converted to true-stress versus true-strain curves [20].
The tensile properties that can be obtained from the stress-strain curves are yield
strength, tensile strength, fracture strength, percent total elongation, uniform elongation,
strain hardening exponent, modulus of resilience, and modulus of toughness. [20]
Types of tensile testing include:

ˆ Adhesion/Bond Strength

ˆ Crimp Joint Pull-o Force

ˆ Peel

ˆ Tear Resistance

The data produced in a tensile test can be used in many ways including:

ˆ To determine batch quality

ˆ To determine consistency in manufacture

ˆ To aid in the design process

ˆ To reduce material costs and achieve lean manufacturing goals

ˆ To ensure compliance with international and industry standards

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5.1 Design And Model
In order to manufacture the prototype that is modular, easily transferable and cheap,
various aspects and considerations are needed to be made. Use of Computer Aided Design
(CAD) model using SOLDWORKS 2019 software can be used to develop a sketch and a 3D
assembly for an easy understanding of the model. Calculation of load, right specication
for a part used and various other factors are considered as well.

5.1.1 SOLIDWORKS

Solid works software is 3D CAD (Computer Aided Design) and CAE (Computer Aided
Engineering) computer program which runs primarily on windows OS. This software has
features for designing a 3D model of a design as well as assemble it. Various parts for this
projects were designed using this software and which were later 3D printed. This software
also provides a Finite Element Analysis (FEA) tool which allows for structural analysis
where the 3D model can be analyzed for the provided load and boundary conditions.
These features were very helpful for this project as it will be explained later.

5.1.2 MATLAB

MATLAB (an abbreviation of "matrix laboratory") is a multi-paradigm numerical com-

puting environment and proprietary programming language developed by MathWorks.
MATLAB allows matrix manipulations, plotting of functions and data, implementation
of algorithms, creation of user interfaces, and interfacing with programs written in other
languages. MATLAB provides the platform required to program and control the machine
to work. It has multiple apps and packages that helps communication among dierent
types of hardware used into a single unit. It also has a Graphical User interface applica-
tion within the software that allows the programmer to add in User Interface controls(UI
controls) and feature which can be used for easy usability for a third party user, with
limited understanding of coding in MATLAB.

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5.1.3 Hardware

800

Figure 4: 2D Assembly Drawing of the proposed UTM

In order to hold all the system together a frame needs to be made. The design was started
with a hand sketch which later transformed into a CAD model using the SOLIDWORKS

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software as seen in Figure 4. With initial model which provided the literature review for
this project uses a wooden frame. As wood is heavier and bulky for the same structure, a
structure with good strength to weight ratio was prioritized. As there is no requirement
for a heavy material like steel, at the same time, due to availability of the material online,
extruded Aluminum enclosures were selected for this project as it is easy to design and
assemble, robust and exible.
The selected Aluminium extruded prole is easy to machine and can be tted with
various ttings like angle brackets, T-slot nut, corner bracket and various screws(M12 ans
M8).
The bolts used for the assembly are M12 which were used for joining two prole mem-
bers rigidly and permanently while M8 bolts are for T-slot nuts and and angle brackets.

Figure 5: M 12 screw joints

The screwed joints are used for fast assembly after drilling and can withstand high
load. For right angle prole joints, the screwed joints provide a high structural strength
within a limited space.

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 Figure 6: T-slot nuts

T-slot nuts slide easily through the prole groves making it possible to tighten various
members together without machining.
The bolts, external features and data sheet are also provided in the company data
sheet [17].
The frame assembly consists of mainly a pair of side members, a top and bottom
member, a pair do base members. The detailed parts can be see in Figure 7.

16
 Lead screw end

Top Member

Axial load bearing

locknut

Side structure x2

Lead screws

Central member

Adapter for load cell

Load cell

Radial load ball bearing

Bottom member

Base leg members

Figure 7: Labeled assembly drawing of the machine

5.1.4 Lead Screw

The main function of a lead screw is to convert rotary motion into linear motion. A pair of
lead screws gure are used which provides two functions, one to move the central member
up and down for a tension or compression test, and the other to provide a parallel support
and ensure its accuracy in a straight movement [41].
There are various types on threads used in a lead screw, with each type has its own
advantage, they are:
ˆ Square thread: most ecient and carries high load but dicult to manufacture,
hence is expensive.
ˆ ACME thread or trapezoidal thread: easy to machine less ecient than square

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threads, but due to its 29 degree (30 degree for trapezium) thread angle it provides higher
strength. Its motion is two directional.
ˆ Buttress thread: It uses triangular thread which uses both properties of the square
and ACME thread but can only carry load in one direction.
With all the properties mentioned above, the ACME thread was used for this project,
with a Tr 22x5 (Trapezium thread, diameter x pitch) as shown in the data sheet[41]. The
resulting output torque for raising the load and lowering the load were calculated, the
detailed calculations can be found in the appendix 9.3 [13].

5.1.5 Round And Hexagon Nuts, and built in Flange Nuts:

Round and hexagon nuts are nuts with same diameter and pitch tting the lead screws,
locks it in place. The material specications (ISO 2901/2903) and size are provided in
the data sheet in the appendix page. These nuts are meant to restrict the lead screw
from slipping vertically up and down and also ensures the load is carried by an axial load
bearing as shown in the Figure 7.
Flange nut is the part that attaches the central member and ensures the up and down
movement of the whole member. The nut travels only when the lead screw starts to rotate
and locks in place when the motion stops. This functionality of ange nut can be seen in
most modern electronically controlled servo motor powered UTM and other such devices
[41].

Figure 8: Flange nuts attached to central member

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5.1.6 Contact bearings

Each bearing type has dierent characteristics, based on its design and load conditions the
best type is selected. For example, deep groove ball bearings can accommodate moderate
radial loads as well as axial loads.

Figure 9: contact bearings load direction

Bearings mainly have two purpose, one is to minimize friction between moving parts
and also to hold axial or tangential load. In general two types of loading are considered,
one is axial loading and radial load or tangential load. The bearing used for the project
is a single row deep groove ball bearing [7], which takes the axial loads from each lock
nuts provided to hold the lead screw in place. A single row deep groove ball bearing is
used to carry radial load but it can also take up considerable amount of axial load. The
retainer keeps the steel balls in position and the groove below the steel balls is the inner
ring and over it is the outer ring. The outer ring, called outer race, is normally placed
inside a bearing housing which is xed, while the inner race holds the rotating shaft. See
Figure 8 for the details.
Another set of single groove ball bearings were used to hold the lead screw in place
parallel to the structure, it mainly carries radial loads from the lead screw and provides
a smooth less friction for rotation. Depending on the shaft diameter and magnitude of
radial and axial load a suitable type of bearing is to be chosen from the manufacturer's
catalogue, either a ball bearing or a roller bearing [23].

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5.1.7 Load Cell

A load cell is a transducer which converts mechanical force into a measurable electrical
energy. There are various types of working principles used in a load cell, some of which
include hydraulic, pneumatic and strain gauge load cells. The one that is cheaper, highly
sensitive, and less bulky and gives a moderate accurate value is the strain gauge load cell.
A strain gauge load cell comprises of a solid metal body onto which strain gauges are
stuck to. The body can be made of various types of sturdy yet elastic metal. Which can
reform its shape within limits. Various metals like aluminium, alloy steel are used.
It uses the Wheatstone bridge principle, see Figure 10: when a load is applied, the load
cell slightly deforms, the strain gauge which are basically at metal coils also change in
shape, in turn this leads to change in electrical resistance of the strain gauge, which later
measures as a voltage change. This change in voltage will be proportional to amount of
applied load. As the voltage output for the load cell used is very minute and the sensitivity
is about 2mV, an amplier is required for conversion. There are many types of ampliers
available, for this project a cheap and readily available one was used, which is  HX711,
as the arduino library for this was available online and was compatible to the used load
cell specications [32][21].

Figure 10: Load cell and Wheastone bridge

5.1.8 Stepper Motor

A Stepper motor is a motor that moves in discrete steps, after each step the motor holds
up position. Inside the motor, it consists of magnetic gear shafts. The electromagnetic
elds created in the gear shaft generate a holding torque, holding the rotor in place.
Stepper motor ranges in various sizes and capacity, based on torque and speed.
A stepper motor is usually used for three conditions that is, precision positioning,
speed control and low speed torque, without any feedback loop, for example stepper
motors are widely used in household 3D printers. A stepper motor may have any number
of coils. But these are connected in groups called "phases". All the coils in a phase are
energized together [14].

20
 There are many variation based on wiring but depending on phase there are unipolar
and bipolar coils. Unipolar drivers, always energize the phases in the same way. One
lead, the "common" lead, will always be negative. The other lead will always be positive.
Unipolar drivers can be implemented with simple transistor circuitry. The disadvantage
is that there is less available torque because only half of the coils can be energized at a
time. Bipolar drivers use H-bridge circuitry to actually reverse the current ow through
the phases.(for bigger size motors a microstep driver is used, which is explained in the
next section). By energizing the phases with alternating the polarity, all the coils can be
put to work turning the motor.
The motor shaft moves to lock itself into place in front of an attracting electromagnet,
each magnet represents one step. It is, however, possible to move the motor shaft into
positions between steps. This is known as micro stepping. In a hybrid stepper motor, a
micro stepping-enabled motor driver can position the rotor in an intermediate position
between the coils as shown in the Figure 11.The advantage of micro stepping is that it
can provide high precision position but this occurs at the expense of output torque.

Figure 11: Dierent rotor positions using Micro-stepping [31]

The one used in this project is a bipolar stepper motor with resolution 1.8deg, 200
steps, and 2.8Amp stepper motor (AMP57TH76-4280). It requires a 4 wire connection,
voltage reversal and external power source, for which a driver module is required. With
computer controlled stepping each rotation and step can be precisely controlled. A stepper
motor is the ideal choice when it comes to precision position and very slow rotation rather
than opting for gears, as its often used in 3D printers, actuators etc [33][12].

Figure 12: Stepper motor Torque vs pulse per second graph [33]

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 The Figure 12 shows the torque output of the used motor compared to its rotation
speed, where 1RPM = 6.67 pulses per second/ half-step. The speed of the motor and
its control is done through the arduino code used in this project. By changing step
frequencies and time delay for each step, the angle of rotation and speed in RPM can be
controlled within the codes provided in the appendix 9.5.

5.1.9 Stepper Motor Driver

To drive a big stepper motor, use of H-bridge is not ideal, hence this requires a dedicated
stepper motor driver module. This electronic device enables the user to improve and
use micro-stepping in a stepper motor by outputting pulse signals. Microstep drivers are
available in a range of voltage and current ratings. The dierence between them is the
voltage and current ratings.
The SMD-4.2 driver as seen in Figure 13, receives logic signals Step, Direction
and Enable and convert them into motor commutation. The motor's shaft moves one
angle step (or microstep) as the driver receives one Step signal. One step (or microstep)
executes as the front edge of the voltage pulse on the STEP input. Rotation direction
depends on the voltage level and switches by changing voltage level on the DIR input.
The motor can be immediately stopped by the active signal on the EN input [39].
The SMD has a voltage input of 12 -48 VDC, gives a maximum output current per
phase of 4.2 Amp and a minimum output current per phase: of 1.2 Amp. The stepper
motor is inputed with a 2.8Amp current per phase with this stepper motor driver and
can microstep to 1, 1/2, 1/4, 1/16 modes.

Figure 13: SMD connections and circuit [39]

22
5.1.10 Planetary GearBox

A planetary gear train is a type of epicyclic gear system consisting a combination of gear
trains with a planet engaging both a sun gear and a ring gear, see Figure 14. Planetary
gear sets can be used for a variety of purposes, mainly for power transmission purposes.

Figure 14: Planetary Gear Train

The planetary gear with a gear ratio of 20 gives an output torque of 32.3Nm for motor
running at 75 RPM (maximum) and an output torque of 5.7Nm at 500RPM (0.3Nm
output torque of motor).

To = Tm · i · η (1)

where, To is Torque output of gear, Tm is Torque input from motor, i is gear ratio and
η is eciency.
As the planetary gear transmits torque and power from motor to the lead screw. For
providing the lifting torque of 9.8Nm to the lead screw in order to lift the 5000N of load
(see appendix 9.3 for lead screw calculation), the motor must provide an output torque
about 0.5Nm with a rotational speed of around 400RPM (full step), which is well within
the motor torque range (assuming eciency of gear box to be around 90percentage as per
company standards).
Using a gear the output torque is increased with the expense of speed and the backlash
is reduced by the optimization and advancement of the gear geometry [16].
The data sheet provided in the appendix shows the nominal output torque provided
by the gear box of around 42Nm. The motor shaft and gear box are coupled using the
inbuilt couple provided in this equipment. The output gear shaft and lead screw was
later joined using a exible coupling, see Figure 15. The gear box provides enough torque
necessary for the calculated torque required by the lead screw.[16]

23
 Figure 15: Stepper motor, Gearbox and shaft coupling

5.2 Electronics
5.2.1 ARDUINO Board

Arduino is an open-source electronics platform which allows users to program micro-

controllers easily [3]. Over the years these arduino boards have been used by students,
researchers and hobbyists from around the world and branches to build variety of projects.
Their donations and experience to the open source has added up to the amount of knowl-
edge available required for this project. See Figure 16 for all the parts of an arduino
board.
An Arduino board consists of a microcontroller and can be programmed using simple
C++ programing. It only requires a mini-B USB cable to connect this board to the PC.
Also, an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) which is a part of the software,
is used to program this electronic board, and allows the user to write and upload the
rmware code into the board through the PC. Due to its cheap cost, easy programming
environment, exibility as well as easy access of knowledge, Arduino Board was chosen
for this project. But among various versions of this board only Arduino Nano was found
best t due to its miniature size required number of pins.
The Arduino Nano uses a ATmega328P microcontroller. It has the same microcon-
troller as an UNO in a smaller package. It has 14 digital input/output pins, 6 pins with
pulse width modulation and 8 analog outputs.. It can be powered through USB along
with a 5V pin. It is a great alternative to its larger counterparts. In-order to work with
the processor pins need to be soldered and xed into the bread board while prototyping
the project. See Figure 16.

24
 Figure 16: Arduino Nano Board using ATMEL ATmega328P 8 bit microcontroller

5.3 Circuitry
A schematical representation of the circuit was made, representing the various components
and connections as shown in Figure 15.(The detailed layout can be found in appendix 9.6)
The electric circuit was designed as shown in Figure 17 and connections were tested
using a bread board during trial. As shown in the circuit diagram. Digital pins D2 and D4
of arduino nano is connected to negative pins of stepper motor driver. Pin D2 connects
to the Step pin and D3 connects to the Direction pin of the respective motor drivers. The
properties of these pins are coded in the adruino IDE as required. For the motors external
power was given my means of a 250W Switch Mode Power Supply, the outputs of which
were connected into the respective pins provided in the Stepper motor drivers.
For the load cell connections the output wires were connected to the ampliers as
explained in further section, and the two output connection such as the D out and serial
clock input are connected to analog pins A0 and A1 respectively. Furthermore, the input
voltage and ground wires are connected to their respective connections as well [2].
Switches for manual control such as up, down and speed are also provided at pins D12,
D11 and D10. The circuit was connected as per mentioned above, rst in a bread board
and was test run before soldering into a matrix board for the nal product.

25
 Figure 17: Circuit Diagram

Figure 18: Circuit connections

5.3.1 Steps on calibration of load cell:

The load cell acquired from the company does not provide any xed zero error value or
any electronics with it, hence calibrating this load cell before use is a major step that

26
needs to be taken into account.
For calibrating the load cell an arduino code is required, which could run the load cell
and see the changes happening with application of various loads, for this a precise known
weight was used to calibrate the value. The algorithm used is explained below. The steps
involved for acquiring the calibration factor setting up the zero error is shown in Figure
19 [21][32].

Figure 19: calibration of load cell

Algorithm 1 Load cell basic code after setting up calibration factor

# include < HX711 .h >

# define DOUT A0
# define CLK A1
HX711 loadCell ;
float scalefactor = -882.86;
void setup (){
Serial . begin (9600);
loadCell . begin ( DOUT , CLK );
loadCell . set_scale ();
loadCell . tare ();
loadCell . set_scale ( scalefactor );
Serial . print ( " load in kilograms : " );
}
void loop (){
float rawvalue = loadCell . get_units ();
float W = ( rawvalue /5)*10;
loadCell . set_scale ( scalefactor );
Serial . println ( W );
}

27
 The load cell used for this project is a 10KN load cell. The details and specications
of this load cell were obtained from its product data sheet and was then calibrated using
the same code. The detailed specications is provided in the appendix.

5.4 MATLAB Coding

The MATLAB analysis is started by initialising the image processing function. In order
to receive the value from arduino into the MATLAB as well as give inputs into the ar-
duino monitor from MATLAB, a serial communication is required between MATLAB and
arduino functions regarding serialport nding, reading and writing of data were searched
from the MATLAB forums and applied here.

5.4.1 Image Processing

Real-Time Object Detection and Tracking technology is used to track the test piece and
the blobs marked on them [43][38].
Image Processing Toolbox provides a comprehensive set of reference-standard algo-
rithms and workow apps for image processing, analysis, visualization, and algorithm
development. It is possible to perform image segmentation, image enhancement, noise
reduction, geometric transformations, image registration, and 3D image processing.
Image Processing Toolbox apps can automate common image processing workows.
This allows to interactively segment image data, compare image registration techniques,
and batch-process large data sets. Visualization functions and apps let us explore images,
3D volumes, and videos; adjust contrast; create histograms; and manipulate regions of
interest (ROIs).
The algorithms can me accelerated by running them on multicore processors and
GPUs.
Image processing is a complex process that required extensive research and through
study to understand the principle of working and the various functions. The detailed
image processing of the required functions was found in Image Acquisition Toolbox MAT-
LAB user guide [27].
For image processing in MATLAB, video processing is initialised where the number of
frames per Second is set. Here to get a particular frame 'getsnapshot()' function is used
and the acquired image is buered.
There are two types of input for real-time image processing, live feed and video le,
and the image acquisition toolbox for camera lists the detailed list after getting all the
addons. And the base working is like Preview > Start acquisition > stop acquisition and
export of data. From this process the required source code is obtained. See Figure 20 for
the various steps involved in image processing.
MATLAB Computer vision:
Use of images of video , algorithm to detect classify and track images. Many appli-
cations from satellites of NASA to robots, face detection, Pattern detection of parts in
industries etc.
Object detection and tracking methods:
ˆ Segmentation blob analysis
ˆ Template matching Features critical to computer vision:
ˆ Edges and corners
ˆ Template
ˆ SURF

28
 ˆ MSER Hungarian algorithm Motion based object tracing: KLT tracking

Figure 20: Image processing

To make external camera compatible with MATLAB, BASLER provided certain func-
tions available online for downloading [25].
baslerFindCamera: returns a cell array containing the camera index and the camera
name.
- BaslerCameraInfo: returns a struct containing all parameters of the selected camera.
- BaslerSetParameter: sets a camera parameter.
- BaslerGetParameter: returns the selected camera parameter.
- BaslerSetROI: sets the region of interest (ROI).
- BaslerPreview: displays a preview image.
- BaslerGetData: captures and returns the selected number of frames.
- BaslerSaveData: captures and saves the selected number of frames to disk.
One of the issues encountered here was that in some cases MATLAB fails to detect
or recognise the image acquisition hardware (camera), is such a scenario it is required to
open the image acquisition toolbox and refresh the hard ware settings.Figure 21

Figure 21: Setting up of Image acquisition equipment

29
5.4.2 APPS Needed To Be Installed In MATLAB For This Project

Figure 22: MATLAB app package

ˆ Basler camera driver

ˆ Image acquisition toolbox Support package for GigE vision hardware
ˆ Image Acquisition Toolbox Support package for GenICam Interace
ˆ Guide to PP Designer Migration Tool for MATLAB

30
5.4.3 Image Tracking

There are various ways to track points like point tracker, motion based tracker algorithm,
MSER Hungarian algorithm and motion based object tracing like KLT tracking and
multiple object tracker. For example, blob analysis is a combination of point tracker and
motion tracker algorithm, which is used to track the centroid, see Figure 23. Properties
like brightness, contrast, exposure, frame rate and frames per trigger are set manually
[30][27][28][29].

Figure 23: Types of detectors

Algorithm 2 Command to get frames

frame = getsnapshot(vid);
dimG = imsubtract(frame(:,:,1), rgb2gray(frame));

Steps Involved In Image Capturing:

Figure 24: algorithm owchart for image acquisition and processing

Filter: To get one frame from the video feed, the red channel is selected as the blob
color is red, see Figure 21 and this is subtracted from the grey image. The image thus
acquired is binarized so that the only pixels that appear would be of red colour. Change
in threshold values depending on grey scales can also be done to improve the identication
of points [8].
Tracking of point : The detector used for this project is vision.BlobAnalysis. This
function computes statistics for connected regions in a binary image, track a set of points
and call object with arguments, as if it were a function. This property is tuneable as the

31
user can change properties anytime. The input arguments for this would include function
such as bw (binary image) which can be obtained through image aquisiton and threshold
values. The output arguments include functions like Area (number of pixels in labeled
region), centroid (centroid coordinates) and bounding box [1] [29][38].
Measuring strain : 'Drawnow' function is used to refresh the loop for every frame
acquired, in which the centroid position of each tracked blob are considered for strain
measurement. Since there are only two blobs present, an algorithm is used to recognise
these points and the measure the distance between these two points. The dierence
between the change in length to the original length is used to nd strain. The code used
for blob tracking can be found [40].

5.5 Camera
A digital camera is used for the real time image tracking for measuring the change in
length. The model used for the machine is acA2440-35um - Basler ace.[19][25]
Specications of Camera :

ˆ Sensor - Sony IMX 264 COMOS Sensor

ˆ Resolution - 2448 x 2048 pixels.

ˆ Pixel size - 3.45 x 3.45 micro-meter.

ˆ Resolution - 5 mega pixel

ˆ Frame rate - 35 frames per second

ˆ The camera uses a USB 3.0 for powering, digital input and output

ˆ Mono/Colour - Mono

The detailed DATA sheet for camera is provided in the appendix.

32
5.5.1 Camera Lens

Lens : AZURE-2514M 5MP 2/3

Focal length : 25mm

Figure 25: Camera positioning and factors

The lens together with the image sensor size of the camera dene the working distance
and the distance between the object that ts inside the image and the camera, see Figure
25[6]. The focal length of the camera can be adjusted to make the image sharper. The
industrial digital camera have a narrow angle of view and small sensor size, compared
to other commercial digital cameras, which enables it to focus sharply on a center spot
with high detail. This requires external features like the right lighting conditions and
minimised distortions.
Using the image acquisition tool box in MATLAB the image is captured with a reso-
lution of 2448 x 2048. The basic principle of the program used will be to detect the points
within a set of minimal pixel area in a single color background within the eld of view.
By using a jig with two points of known measurement (for example 50mm), equivalent
minimum number of pixels between these points will be measured in the program, and
will be converted in terms of a true scale. This is based on the condition that, the working
distance and focal length must be xed, see Figure 25. The precision in measurement of
length depends on the pixel resolution of the camera. For the purpose of strain mea-
surement, change in gauge length with an accuracy of 1% of the original length will be
considered [22](where, gauge length is the part of a test specimen actually being measured
for elongation during a tensile test).

33
6 Results
From the open source site Github, sample datas were collected based on the previous
attempts made by a few other engineers, for the design basis. Several iterations were
made, to come up with a feasible and easy to handle model. The calculations were
simulated and nal machine was made using aluminium proles to make it modular to
the maximum capacity (the background data has been collected mostly based on Grey
Literature provided on web sites).

6.1 Final Prototype Design

The design was extensively modied to meet the requirements of JTH. The refered design
was more rugged and crude and the material used was wood. For the prototype, major
changes were made in the material selection, to make it more modular and exible. To
achieve the necessary properties, the material was changed to aluminium instead of wood
to withstand the load. A new type of gripper design was introduced, which is self aligning
and wouldn't require any form of calibration for prolonged use. The frame of the UTM
is made using extruded aluminium prole to withstand a max load of 10kN. The design
aws were rectied and simulations were run using SOLIDWORKS. Figure 26 shows the
initial proposed design made using SOLIDWORKS.

Figure 26: Initial Design with rectangular gripper

For the initial proposed design alloy steel plates were used for load distribution on the
member.

Figure 27: Modied member

34
6.2 Gripper Design
The gripper was initially designed to be rectangular for easy machining and self aligning
and centering, making manual calibration after each testing redundant. The gripper
consists of a main body with two movable wedge blocks for gripping of samples. The
proposed material for making the gripper was alloy steel. Extensive simulations were run
to make sure that the proposed design had the strength and other required properties to
withstand the load applied Figure 28 [11].

Figure 28: Initial Gripper design

Figure 29: Simulation of Gripper

After getting the desired results the design was optimised to get a more cost eective
design and the results obtained was extremely promising Figure 30.

35
 Figure 30: Optimised design

From the optimised gure a new design was made, which would drastically reduce the
machining time. The new design is cylindrical and still uses wedge blocks to hold the
specimen for testing and still doesn't require any calibration for aligning. Simulations
were run on the new design to make sure that it can take the load, see Figure 31.

Figure 31: New gripper design and its simulation

But due to technical limitations, the created design was discarded and pre-machined
set of clamps were used[42], as shown in Figure 32.

36
 Figure 32: New Clamps used

6.3 Frame / Assembly

For strength and support of the machine, extruded aluminium enclosures were selected
due to its high strength and ease of assembly. Aluminium as a material has a strength
to weight ratio superior to steel. Due to its high strength, low density (compared to
steel or any other structural material for the cost ), alumimium TC40 proles were used,
which consists of open proles ranging from types Light , Basic , Heavy and Ultra. For
this project Basic open proles were selected. (The detailed properties of the selected
aluminium prole can be found in [17].

Figure 33: Aluminium prole

Strength analysis done using Solid-Works Simulation is as follows, see Figure 34:

37
 Figure 34: Simulation Analysis of the central member under load

Members of 350mm 360mm, 1300 mm and 400 mm were cut using saw belt. The
measurement marking were done by hand using vernier scales to meet the precision and
tolerance. To connect the members together holes were drilled with various drill-bits to
meet the required purpose. Similarly holes were drilled to support the lead screws and
support threads. Initially the center member was supposed to have two full length steel
plates to provide additional strength, support and load distribution but due to technical
limitations the plan was modied and ended with six small steel plates instead of two.
The steel plates were cut with equal holes and bolted on, to distribute the load over
the softer aluminum prole. There were a few modications made on the nal assembly
design due to technical manufacturing limitations and other constraints without aecting
the requirements.

38
 Figure 35: Frame assembly

The end section of the lead screws were inserted into a pair of ball bearings that are
being housed inside a 3D printed socket. The purpose of these bearings is to guide the
lead screws in line and not lean or bend inwards. With all parts and members in place
and well aligned, all the parts were bolted in permanently Figure35.
The stepper motors are xed using 3D printed brackets using PLA material and the
bracket design can be found in [40]. The brackets are designed and analysed, so that it
can carry the hub and withstand the torque produced by the motor.
After completing the frame assembly the electric part of the UTM was assemble and
attached on to it. The testing video of the assembly can be found in the link provided
3
below .

3 https://youtu.be/nl2pREahT_M

39
6.4 Setting Up Of Electrical Connections
6.4.1 Electric Connections

FIRST TEST RUN :

The code used for testing can be found in the link below. The values of load cell
outputs will be displayed within this serial monitor at a given baud rate.
4

Figure 36: Setup during rst test run

Figure 37: Test phase graph

4 https://github.com/Stephenlonewolf1010/UTM-/blob/master/UTMarduino/testing_phase/testing_phase.ino

40
6.4.2 Arduino MATLAB communication

Here the commands are needed to be input from Arduino to MATLAB through serial
communication. And the output from Arduino is displayed in MATLAB. For this process
rst the available serial port needs to be found which can be done by using the command
serialportlist(available). The algorithm used for this is shown below Algorithm 3.

Algorithm 3 Inputing serial port command

s e r i a l p o r t l i s t ( ' available ') ;

s= s e r i a l ( 'COM4' ) ;
fopen ( s ) ;
f p r i n t f ( s , ' % s ' , 'M' ) ;
o u t= fscaf (s );

6.4.3 Plotting Graph

Before the image acquisition is started the plot should be initialised Algorithm 4.
X axis - Strain from Image acquisition
Y axis - Stress is obtained from Load Cell
an exit function is used to close the plot loop.

Algorithm 4 Plot initialization

h . p l o t = p l o t (NaN , NaN, ' = k ' ) ;

hold on ;
h . m e a n P l o t = p l o t (NaN , NaN, ' = b ' ) ;
data .X = [];
data .Y = [];
d a t a .Xm = [];
d a t a .Ym = [];
xlabel ( ' strain ')
ylabel ( ' stress ')

Source GUI, code and all necessary design les can be found here [40].

41
6.5 Control System For UTM
6.5.1 Graphical User Interface

The MATLAB App Designer is a replacement to the MATLAB GUIDE, as the future
versions would be incompatible with GUIDE generated GUI's. The initial layout was
made using MATLAB GUIDE which had only base function and layout, it provided
the required codes needed but was not sucient for what was required to control the
equipment. The GUIDE system was not supported by latest version of MATLAB, due to
all these factors and reasons, it was necessary to switch from GUIDE to App Designer.
The App Designer package builds apps with a variety of components like User Interface
controls(UI controls), check boxes, drop-down lists, text boxes, toggle buttons etc. It also
enables the user to provide control switches that looks similar to an instrument panel.
There are a lot of options available in the component gallery allowing the user to plot 2D
or 3D graphs, layout tables, text area, sliders , knobs etc. See Figure 38 for the general
layout of the GUI.
This package also has a feature to automatically check for coding problems using the
design code analyser. One can view warning errors and debug using these integrated
features and modify accordingly. There are still some unknown errors found in the code
used for the project, and also some errors within the App designer were found as we
require more experience with the software. The biggest catch with App designer codes is
that it cannot be copy pasted or replicated on to any other platform without using the
relevant packages.
The GUI needed for the running of machine was made using MATLAB App Designer.
App Designer is a secondary software available where the basic interface and pages were
laid out [35][26].

Figure 38: Graphic User Interface

42
6.5.2 GUI Properties

The GUI was created keeping in mind as to make it as simple as possible for a user to use
it without any hassle or a detailed working manual, all the while making it look elegant.
The codes for the working was previously made to check the working and compatibility
and once it was seen that the codes work properly the interface was made. The interface
consists of a plain grey background on to which text boxes and User Interface controls (UI
controls) were placed. The detailed properties of each UI control buttons are explained
in the following sub sections.

6.5.3 User Interface controls (UI controls) and Properties

6.5.3.1 Test colour

The drop down menu can be used to select the colour of test piece. Only two colour
option are given as of now as the camera is black and white and the most contrasting
colours are these two. See Figure 39.

Figure 39: Colour selection tab

6.5.3.2 Calibration

This is used to set up the experiment and position the camera initially, when clicked on
the button a new window comes in which the camera video preview opens up, where the
user can move the camera position, correct the focus, check the blob position, back ground
lighting and contrast. This is an important and necessary function as it calculates the
distance between the blobs and automatically lls in the Initial Distance column in main
page. The trigger code can be seen in the picture below. The camera doesn't need to be
calibrated as such or require any external jigs to measure the distance between blobs, as
the percentage change is taken to nd the distance between the blobs and not the metric
value. But in case if any user needs to nd the pixel distance or need to calibrate the
camera for some reason the calibration code and jig model can be found in the github
site. This button is provided so as to initialise the starting strain measurement to 0.

43
6.5.3.3 Close CAM

Close cam button is to just to close any camera window that is open which includes
preview or calibration window.

6.5.3.4 Area

The cross section area is required to be measured and input manually for calculation of
engineering stress.

Stress = F orce/Area (2)

where, Area is the product of initial width (b) and thickness (h) of a test specimen,

Area = b · h (3)

44
6.5.3.5 Start Test

The start test button initializes the whole machine by setting the values from calibration
and cross section area. See Figure 40.

Figure 40: Test initialising code

6.5.3.6 Tension and Compression User Interface controls (UI controls)

After initialising necessary data, it is required to select the type of test, for which, tension
and compression User Interface controls(UI controls) are provided. When one of these
buttons are clicked, it begins the test chosen and the relevant graph will come on the

45
left side of the GUI screen with live feed of blob tracking image at the bottom section.
The live values for young's modulus (in MPa) and maximum stress (in Mpa) will also be
displayed.

6.5.3.7 Manual Mode

If the user is required to move or adjust the center member, lead screw the manual mode
is used, which allows the user to control the lead screw rotation using a push button. It
can also has the property of changing the speed mode and can also be used as a physical
emergency stop button. If one of the push User Interface controls(UI controls) is pressed
while one of the programs(tensile or compressive) is running, it will cause the program
to be on hold and stop the machine and will automatically jump to manual mode. The
manual mode can also be used to do the do the experiments manually instead of running
on the automated programs. See Figure 41.

Figure 41: Manual Mode User Interface controls(UI controls)

46
Stop Machine

In case of emergencies or if the machine is required to stop in the middle of an experiment

while it is running the Stop Machine button (UI control) can be used. When pushed, all
the current running programs will be terminated.

Figure 42: Code for Stopping the machine

Another added feature is in the code through which the machine stops when the test
piece breaks and the load becomes 20% less than the total value.

Algorithm 5 Code to automatically terminate the program after getting the result

if F > = app . Fmax ,

app . Fmax = F ;
end if F < app . Fmax * 0 . 8 && F>0
app . STRESS . V a l u e = app . m a x s t r e s s ;
msgbox ( ' bye ' ) ;
return ;
end

When the experiment is complete and when it stops the nal value of E will be
displayed on the GUI main page. the graph and test piece position is displayed along side
this.

47
6.6 Final Product
The dierent stages of building can be seen below, see Figure 43. After the completion
of each stage the build was evaluated and necessary changes were made on the go to
make it as functional as possible. Test requirements used for protype such as test speed
was set to 2mm/min and the grippers used are self-centring and does not prematurely
cause any fractures with the clamping force. Chances for slipping were minimised by
proper tightening of gripper jaws but at times slippage during tests were detected. Values
obtained from such cases were discarded. Gauge length: The gauge length are basically
points marked by hand on the test specimen, as per standards the gauge length was kept
to 50mm[22].

Figure 43: Initial assembly > Testing Phase > Final product

48
6.6.1 Working Video

The video links for the working of Machine can be found in the links below:
The MATLAB GUI and its working can be seen in Figure 44.
5 6 7
Machine working on GUI ,test Set up and additional working videos are all available
online.

Figure 44: Load graph generated by MATLAB for test on UTM

5 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8qjTkPQZKw
6 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CToBMy0ZGI
7 https://www.youtube.com/user/axcelatommarvelmansi/videos

49
6.7 Comparison for Accuracy
6.7.1 Setting up of Standard UTM for comparison testing

For comparison on the accuracy of the machine the material chosen was PLA (Polylactic
Acid). The Dog bone model was designed using Solidworks according to ASTM (American
Society for Testing and Materials) standards type 1 samples, the detailed dimensions for
the design and other details can be found in appendix 9.9[5][36].
The designed model was 3D printed using Prusa MK3 printer, the settings used for
the printing is as shown in Figure 45. The inll pattern used was rectilinear with 100%
inll.

Figure 45: Print settings

50
 The obtained values were compared against Zwick / Roell UTM at JTH with the
settings as shown in the Figure 46 below:

Figure 46: Zwick / Roell test settings

The Zwick/Roell UTM [18] uses a 100kN load cell (ISO 7500-1) and a laserXtens (ISO
9513) non-contact extensometer, which are periodically caliberated under their respective
ISO (international Organization for Standardization) standards.
As the current printed samples were too thin for the standard test machine to register
any values, the results were compared against previously done tests for the same material
test pieces created using ASTM standards type 3 samples, the dimension details for the
dog-bone design can be found in appendix 9.9[5][36]. In each case multiple tests were
conducted, but for the comparison only ve samples were considered.

51
6.7.2 Comparison

Figure 47: Young's Modulus comparison bar chart

Five test samples were tensile tested in the prototype machine to obtain the stress strain
graph and the respective physical properties. Test specimen was 3D printed as per ASTM
type1 standards. Loads were applied until failure, the highest being 1372N and lowest
being 1215.2 N. The maximum tensile stress of 41.8Mpa and modulus of 1951MPa were
obtained. The test method chosen for this project was similar to the experiments done by
other researchers and publications[37]. The obtained values also match with the tensile
strengths obtained in other publications. [37]
Same procedure was done with the industrial UTM with a test piece of ASTM D368
type3 standard, the maximum tensile stress was around 46.3MPa, and 1930Mpa. The
compared overall results gave an absolute dierence of 21Mpa, see Figure 47, and shows a
relative dierence of 2%. But the values may vary under dierent printing and orientation
conditions.

52
 Figure 48: Comparison of Prototype and Zwick/roel UTM

The respective graphs from one of the tensile test results are shown in Figure 48. As
the feature for automatic stop for the prototype was removed , all points were plotted
even after the failure of test piece. This graph shows its yield point without a stress
increase after yielding. Whereas, the resulting graph obtained from the industrial UTM
stops after a set gauge length or failure.
The values obtained between the two test results provides a similar modulus but a
small dip can be seen between the ultimate tensile strengths of the two test results, due
to the following reasons:

ˆ One reason may be due to dierent displacement rate of the two machines, as the
strength measured in a faster displacement rate shows a higher strength measure-
ment than in a slower displacement rate.

53
Figure 49: tensile tested results of PLA for varying displacement rates from reference
research paper [24]

The displacement rate of the prototype machine was 2mm/min (as per DIN EN
ISO 527-1)[22].Whereas the zwick/roell (industrial UTM) was 50mm/min. Hence
the values of ultimate stress may vary with slightly lesser values obtained with slower
displacement rates. For the 100KN UTM a larger test piece of ASTM D638 type 3
was used.

ˆ Even though, the dierence in section thickness is claimed to show negligible varia-
tion in strength values as per standards, the dierence in specimen geometry does
slightly eect in the tensile property of the material, as found in the research paper.

ˆ Polymers being 3D printed specimens show variations in strength with printing ori-
entation and inll[34]. Unlike metals polymers have many other factors to consider.
Use of 3D printed specimen for comparison between the two machines are not much
reliable in this case[9].

54
7 Discussion
The initial proposed design required a few alterations to be made while machining and
manufacturing due to various constrains. But all the alterations and changes were made
in such a way that it did not aect the structural integrity of the machine or changed any
requirement sets for it at the beginning.
The initially proposed design had a new clamp design which was self centering and
has better theoretical gripping power, but due to technical limitations and availability of
materials, a pre-machined clamp that was already available was used.
The Lead screw height is limited to a xed value, therefore machine height and length
in which the center member can move cannot be changed.
When the machine is working the lock nut sets have a tendency to become displaced
due to vibration of the lead screw. 3D printed washers are used to to keep the nuts and
ball bearing in place to avoid unnecessary contact and wear.
Due to the continuous vibration of lead screw and back lash, the bottom round and
hexagonal nut set tends to get loose and move down. The issue was rectied by taping
the lead screw section with vibration absorbing tape to form a tight t.
When the self centering grippers are in line irrespective of what defect it has, the
test piece will be centered. But due to the continuous usage, the gripper groves became
slightly lose due to which the test piece slipped during tests. This was rectied by using
polymer strips in between groves to maintain the steadiness and integrity.
The quality of an experiment is dened as the reliability of the reading obtained
during the experiment. That is a steady movement in terms of the values obtained. The
experiment quality is improved by the use of pre-machined self centering grippers as they
do not require constant calibration. The use of stepper motor and arduino connections
further adds the improvement in precise positioning of lead screw and speed control. With
the implementation of Graphical User Interface and MATLAB coding the machine system
is completely functional in any available computer systems without needing additional
software with no compatibility issues.
When comparing the values obtained from test machine and standard UTM (Zwick
/Roell) it was found to be in the similar value ranges.
A few bugs were found in the graph generation code of which some were debugged.
Even though some bugs are still present in the code the machine is functional with the
capability of forming graphs with relative accuracy. Further upgrades and debugging is
possible which are beyond our capability.

55
8 Conclusion and Future work
In the modern age of 3D printing it is not logical or feasible to have UTM with a load
capacity like 10kN which costs 21,000 USD[15] which is approximately 196,567 SEK to test
the material properties of polymers. Keeping this in mind, the team decided to nd a way
to circumvent the cost issue by constructing a UTM which required minimal machining
and by using readily available materials. This thesis has helped to achieve an alternate to
commercially available UTM for polymers, which is modular and customisable. All the
designs and related programmed codes will be available to the public through Github, for
8
further feedback and upgrades .
The second major achievement of the thesis is the integration of Real-Time Object
Detection and Tracking technology into the UTM, using a high resolution camera to
measure the strain instead of a conventional extensometer. It is also established that
MATLAB is viable to be used to create the Graphical User Interface and to code the
working of the machine. Furthermore, all the requirements set for the machine at the
start of the thesis work have been met.
According to ISO standards grips for holding the test specimen shall be attached to
the machine so that the major axis of the test specimen coincides with the direction
of extension through the center line of the grip assembly[22]. Since a pre-machined in-
line gripper is used, which self centers (compared to a two sided screw action grips), it
minimises the need for frequent centering and in-line calibration.
With the implementation of a graphical user interface (GUI) system, increases the
reliability of the machine and opens the option to make it upgradable.
The feasibility of this machine for actual testing was conrmed by comparison of
values obtained from several sample tests conducted on both prototype test machine and
zwick/roell UTM, as
the modulus values obtained in both machines were found to be close.
From the stress-strain graph obtained it was concluded that 3D printed test samples
are not extremely reliable to access the accurate values through tensile testing as there
are way too many factors aecting the structural integrity of the test piece. For proper
comparison values material with isotropic nature are preferable.

Future-work

With the machine being modular the parts can be swapped out with ease making upgrad-
ing possible. In the future with the proper components and electric motor the machine
can be upgraded to perform fast testing. By swapping the gripper / adapters various tests
like compression test and three point bending test can also be conducted. The machine
can be further upgraded to simultaneously test multiple test pieces or samples at the same
time. The machine can also be upgraded to perform shear testing and to evaluate true
stress by using the high resolution camera and proper MATLAB algorithm.

8 [https://github.com/Stephenlonewolf1010/UTM-]

56
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International, West Conshohocken, PA, (January), 2014.
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series=s-198;camera-model=m-6803. Lens Selector |
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Materials and Design, 124:143157, jun 2017.
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[11] I. De Baere, W. Van Paepegem, and J. Degrieck. Design of mechanical clamps with
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[13] Huco Dynatork. High Precision Lead Screws - www.huco.com.

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[14] Bill Earl. All About Stepper Motors -
https://learn.adafruit.com/all-about-stepper-motors/what-is-a-stepper-motor.
Adafruit learning system, 2020.
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Warranty | eBay.

[16] Eisele Antriebstechnik. EPL-Q 64 -

http://eisele-getriebe.de/product/epl-q/?table=Array.

Product catalogue - https://www.exlink.com/zcms/zpublish/45/uploads//

[17] Flexlink.
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MATLAB driver for Basler cameras -
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[20] E. Huerta, J. E. Corona, A. I. Oliva, F. Avilés, and J. González-Hernández.

Universal testing machine for mechanical properties of thin materials. Revista
Mexicana de Fisica, 56(4):317322, 2010.
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© Iec:2001
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[23] I I T Kharagpur. Module 14 Brief overview of bearings -

https://nptel.ac.in/content/storage2/courses/112105125/pdf/mod14les2.pdf.
[24] Todd Letcher and Megan Waytashek.
Material property testing of 3D-printed specimen in pla on an entry-level 3D printer -
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272623242_Material_Property_Testing_of_3D-
Printed_Specimen_in_PLA_on_an_Entry-Level_3D_Printer. ASME
International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition, Proceedings
(IMECE), 2A(December 2014), 2014.
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[31] Mortiz Walter. How Accurate Is Microstepping Really? | Hackaday -

https://hackaday.com/2016/08/29/how-accurate-is-microstepping-really/, 2016.

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[33] Nordela.Stegmotorer -
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[35] A N Patil and S B Patil. Advancing Display System for Universal Testing Machine
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[37] Shivraj Yeole. (PDF) Tensile Testing and Evaluation of 3D Printed PLA Specimens
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[38] Pritpal Singh, B. B.V.L. Deepak, Tanjot Sethi, and Meta Dev Prasad Murthy.
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59
9 Appendix
9.1 Load cell Specication DATA sheet

60
9.2 Digital camera and its specications DATA sheet

61
9.3 Torque Calculations
Raising the load

Figure 50: Forces at the contact surface for raising the load

α is the helix angle,

P is the axial force acting on the lead screw,
N is the normal reaction and μN is the frictional force.
dm is the mean diameter of the thread

F = 5000N

L
α = tan−1 ( ) = 1.657
πdm
For equilibrium

Σx : P − µN cosα − N sinα = 0

Σy : F + µN sinα − N cosα = 0
This gives:

F (µcosα + sinα)
P = = 897.909N
(cosα − µsinα)
Torque transmitted to rise the load

dm
T =P× = 897.91 × 11 = 9877.01N mm = 9.88N m
2

62
Lowering the load

Figure 51: Forces at the contact surface for lowering the load

F = 5000N
For Equilibrium,
Σx : P − µN Cosα + N Sinα = 0

Σy : F − N αµN Sinα = 0
This gives

F (µCosα − Sinα)
P =
(Cosα − µSinα)
Torque to lower the Load

dm
T =P× = 6060N mm = 0.6N m
2

63
9.4 Planetary Gearbox DATA Sheet

64
9.5 Stepper motor control

#i n c l u d e <S t e p p e r . h>
const int stepsPerRevolution = 200;
// change this to fit the number of steps per revolution
// initialize the stepper library on pins 8 through 11:
Stepper myStepper ( s t e p s P e r R e v o l u t i o n , 2, 3);
void setup ()
{
// set the speed at 1000 rpm :
myStepper . s e t S p e e d ( 1 0 0 0 ) ;
// initialize the serial port :
S e r i a l . begin (9600);
}
void loop ()
{
// step one revolution in one direction :
S e r i a l . p r i n t l n (" c l o c k w i s e " ) ;
myStepper . s t e p ( s t e p s P e r R e v o l u t i o n ) ;
delayMicroseconds (100);
// step one revolution in the other direction :
S e r i a l . p r i n t l n (" counterclockwise " ) ;
m y S t e p p e r . s t e p (= s t e p s P e r R e v o l u t i o n ) ;
delay (500);
}

65
9.6 Circuit Diagram

9.7 Code for calibration button

Figure 52: Code for calibration button

66
9.8 Detailed settings for 3D printer

67
9.9 ASTM Standards for samples

68