Strain / Fatigue Data Collection

The importance of product durability cannot be overstated. From the components which make up a car’s suspension, to the blades that constitute a jet engine, in many cases product failure can be catastrophic. There are many techniques and predictive methods for forecasting these failures but they all start from a common point.

The three main elements for fatigue calculations, which are used to determine the durability of a part or system, are loads, stresses, and material properties. All these properties are measured with a strain gauge. The gauges are applied to the surface of the test object. As the surface of the object displaces (strains), the resistance of the gauge changes. Using a special type of signal conditioning called bridge completion, the gauge becomes part of a circuit called a Wheatstone Bridge.

The WSB42X module is a bridge completion Module that can work with both constant voltage and constant current strain gauges. It can measure both static and dynamic strain with very high precision. Our open data formats and driver allow the measured strains to be imported into fatigue calculation software programs.