Nowadays, structural health monitoring (SHM) presents a hot topic in vast areas of industries, to monitor structural changes from smaller devices to civil engineering constructions. The core of SHM is to predict the fatal failure of the monitored object. One of the most influential effects is mechanical stresses applied on the material in the form of pressure, torque, or tension. Therefore, for different applications, a suitable sensor needs to be selected.
Market offers wide range of solutions including strain gauges, piezoelectric sensors, MEMS, optical sensors, or MicroWire. covering whole range from industrial applications to laboratory and testing settings, MicroWire represents a unique solution.
RVmagnetics MicroWire is a passive, contactless sensor – element with no direct wiring that can be embedded into material without damaging its integrity. Depending on requirements MicroWire is capable of measuring pressure, strain, torsion, bending and other mechanical quantities. MicroWire is also able to cover crack detection inside the material and even play a key role in predictive maintenance of your products. A tailor-made sensing solution providing a benefit of its size, range, chemical resistance and on top thermally independent measurements. It can withstand deformation of the material leading to MicroWire’s elongation up to 2 %.
Contactless data acquisition can be performed through the materials and in ideal case up to 10 cm distance.
RVmagnetics offers an opportunity to use a MicroWire sensor as a reliable qualitative crack sensor – providing only digital information, whether the object has been damaged.
You can read more on How Does Micro Pressure Sensor Work here .
In this video we are demonstrating the use of RVmagnetics MicroWire sensor for contactless and wireless pressure detection.
The main parts of the demonstration kit are:
In the video, the demonstration happens by pushing and pulling the plastic bar placed onto the holder. The MicroWire attached to the plastic bar has no contact with the sensing head. Information about applied stress is transferred via magnetic response of the MicroWire. It is detected by the sensing head of the black box below. Black-box contains electronics generating the magnetic field to obtain the MicroWire’s response and send it via Bluetooth to the tablet. The blue bar on the tablet screen displays a real-time representation of the direction and intensity of applied pressure.
The system is scalable according to the client’s needs and it can be adjusted based on specific requirements. The system also allows addressing more complex tasks, such as creating pressure distribution maps, torsion of shafts, bending of steel beams, or other unique needs of the customer. With vast and unique possibilities, it is important to showcase the basics of the system, which we present in the video.