Torque transducer sensitivity study

Abstract: A torque transducer or a torque sensor is a device for measuring and recording the torque on a rotating system. Torque transducers usually employ strain gauges to measure the torsional moment applied to a rotating shaft.It is to be noted that for an ideal torque transducer, it should measure only the strain that is caused by a torque. Strain due to bending load should be compensated as per the Wheatstone bridge arrangement. However, because of geometrical tolerances and assembly errors, the compensation doesn’t occur and the measured strain is a resultant of bending loads and axial loads which are undesired to measure the torque associated with the system. An analytical formulation has been developed using Matlab and this thesis gives the generalized indication of the strain due to all the associated loads. The user shall also entire the region where the strain needs to be computed and this knowledge can be useful for placing the strain gauges in the shaft accordingly. Initially, the formulation is based on a standard Torque Transducer used at Atlas Copco and then, a generalized result has been developed. The theoretical formulation is verified using the ProEngineer Mechanica software. The end user shall enter the different loads (if any) along with the geometrical tolerance values and the output will be an indication of the strain at point, strain at a region and sensitivity. The main intention of the thesis is to create a better understanding of the strain associated with the twisting, bending and axial loads and also the geometrical imperfections. The user can also make a decision on the location of strain gauges on a shaft for maximum accuracy. Finally, the differences in error from different possible configurations are compared and a conclusion has been made based on factorial design pertaining to design of experiments.