A smart method to calibrate universal testing machines by incorporating acoustic methods

Abstract

The aim of this research is the development of a non-destructive testing methodology for tensile, compression and bending tests to ascertain the calibration status of universal testing machines. An algorithm which would be eventually included in the machine-bound control system keeps track of the calibration status by assessing errors which would be dependent on the acoustically determined material properties like elastic, shear and compression moduli. An "Acoustic Reference Sample" serving as a non-destructive reference material would be used to determine these properties. The reference sample material would have a large elastic range and hence can be loaded within this range several times to obtain the elastic properties, which would be subsequently cross-referenced with the acoustically determined material properties in the calibration stage. The machine-bound control system would make use of an inbuilt algorithm to keep track of this change in material properties and hence the calibration status. The development of this strategy would bring down costs associated with quality assessments and subsequently improve reliability of testing procedures considerably when there are long intervals in calibration of the testing equipment.