MAE 334 – INTRODUCTION TO COMPUTERS AND INSTRUMENTATION Introduction.Docx 1 of 13 9/2/2009 Scott H Woodward Instructors Lecture Scott H. Woodward 323 Jarvis Hall 645-1457 Office Hours: After Class Wednesday Thursday by Appointment Lab Roger Mayne 1005 Furnas Hall 645-1424 Office Hours: By Appointment Web Site UBlearns and http://www.eng.buffalo.edu/Courses/mae334 Username and Password for the homework solutions are both “334” Textbook R. S. Figliola & D. E. Beasley, Theory and Design for Mechanical Measurements, John Wiley & Sons, NY, Fourth Edition, 2006. Third edition texts are also acceptable. Some of the section and page numbers will have changed but this should not significantly affect your ability to learn the material. Grading Policy Examinations There will be a midterm and a cumulative final examination covering material from the lectures and the laboratories. Exams will be closed book, mostly multiple choice questions with a few short answer calculations. See the Course Notes Page for examination dates and example of past exams.MAE 334 – INTRODUCTION TO COMPUTERS AND INSTRUMENTATION Introduction.Docx 2 of 13 9/2/2009 Scott H Woodward Grading The course grade will be composed of the following components: Midterm Examination (and pop quizzes) - 15% Final Examination (and pop quizzes)- 25% Laboratory Reports and Presentations - 60% There will be 10 unannounced in-class quizzes. Quiz points earned prior to the midterm exam will be added to your midterm exam grade. Those earned after the midterm will be added to your final exam grade. Your lab grade will be curved based on the grades of those students graded by a particular TA, not the entire class. If the other students in your lab section are receiving lower grades on average than you are then you can assume your final lab grade will be above a "C+" (of course the opposite scenario is also true.) Your final numeric average will be based on the above ratios and then curved based on the class statistics. The class median will correspond to about a C+ and one standard deviation above the median will be approximately a B+ and one standard deviation below will be approximately a D+. The exact math used to calculate your course numerical average is Average = (Midterm+Quizzes)*15% + (Final+Quizzes)*25% + (Curved Lab Average)*60% Both the midterm and final exams will be worth 100 points the quizzes will be worth approximately 40. This means there is a possibility of scoring above 100% on the midterm or final exam portion of your weighted average. Remember because this class is curved based on the performance of your classmates not attending class and taking the quizzes will reduce your grade compared to those students who do take the quizzes. "If you have any condition, such as a physical, learning or mental disability which will make it difficult for you to carry out the course work as outlined or require extended time on examinations, please notify me during the first two weeks of the course so we may discuss appropriate arrangements and/or reasonable accommodations." Course Objective • Enable you to successfully design experiments, interact with measurement systems and process results to obtain a meaningful understanding of a physical phenomenaMAE 334 – INTRODUCTION TO COMPUTERS AND INSTRUMENTATION Introduction.Docx 3 of 13 9/2/2009 Scott H Woodward Material Introduced • several common physical measurement systems • several common sensors (like an accelerometer or strain gage) • modern methods of computerized data acquisition • common statistical techniques • experimental uncertainty analysis • guidelines for planning and documenting experiments • achieving meaningful objectives from digital data • quality data not massive quantities The laboratory sessions • reinforce the above concepts • provide hands-on experience o with a modern computerized data acquisition system o modern instrumentation and sensors • Secondary objective is to teach good laboratory practice, work habits and experiment design. We will make extensive use of spreadsheets for graphing data, performing statistical calculations and general computations. If you are not proficient in the use of spreadsheets you are advised that significantly more independent effort on your part will be required.MAE 334 – INTRODUCTION TO COMPUTERS AND INSTRUMENTATION Introduction.Docx 4 of 13 9/2/2009 Scott H Woodward The Analog and Digital Worlds We are aware of the analog world through the use of our senses or physiological methods of perception. (Sight/light, Hearing/sound, Taste, Smell & Touch: a limited classification attributed to Aristotle which does not include pain, balance, motion & acceleration, time, temperature and possibly direction) These analog signals, like the light bouncing off this page, are continuously variable in intensity. They have what is referred to as infinite resolution. The digital world is generally thought of as consisting of bits of information each stored as either a 1 or 0. These bits are often combined to form words of a given length. A word is said to have a finite resolution of a certain number of bits. Data acquisition bridges these two worlds, turning an infinite resolution analog signal into a finite resolution measurement to be stored or manipulated. Not only is data acquisition pervasive in your life, your safety or possibly even your life often depends on it. Your cell phone, cruise control, anti-lock-braking, adaptive cruise control, heart monitors (Electrocardiogram or EKG), power grid and countless other consumer items use data acquisition to capture and manipulate signals. Proper implementation of these high-precision, life-saving data acquisition applications is the consumer's expectation and the engineers bane. We will focus on the basic concepts needed as a engineering user (not a designer) of a data acquisition system to properly sample analog signals for engineering objectives with a typical data acquisition system. Basic Measurement Concepts Measurement System Components 1. Sensor (i.e. ear drum) 2. Transducer (i.e. middle ear bones, ossicles) 3. Signal Conditioning (i.e. stapedius muscle reflex) 4. Output (i.e. nerve impulses from the cochlea) 5. Feedback & Control (i.e. turn down your iPod!)MAE 334 – INTRODUCTION TO COMPUTERS AND INSTRUMENTATION Introduction.Docx 5 of 13 9/2/2009 Scott H Woodward Control of a Furnace Example: The thermocouple