Aerospace Engineering Commons^™

Motor Control System For Near-Resonance High-Cycle Fatigue Testing, Samer K. Armaly

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This research project develops a low-cost high-cycle fatigue (HCF) testing system comprised of an AC motor, variable frequency drive (VFD), eccentric cam, and feedback controller. The system acts as a forced harmonic oscillator leveraging mechanical resonance to vibrate a specimen at a frequency required to induce the testing's strain amplitudes.

This system depends highly on the material being tested. As such, the controller incorporates material characteristics. A frequency sweep measures the strain amplitude to characterize the specimen. Additionally, other measurements such as acceleration can be used as a proxy control variables for strain. A function converts the control variable to …