Caterpillar (CAT), the construction equipment company, was showing off their equipment at the recent USA Science and Engineering Festival. Visitors got a look at the technology that goes into the massive equipment, including the torque sensor that tests all CAT parts. At the show, however, the sensor was set up for something else – arm wrestling.
CAT’s Uzman Hahn explains to ENGINEERING.com’s Shawn Wasserman how the sensor works.
Uzman, can you please explain to us what we have here?
“Sure. So this is an arm wrestling bench. Everything here is an actual CAT part. For the way it's working today, we modified this part here (points to shaft) for an arm. This is the torque shaft.”
“So it's amazing how much torque you can generate. The signal then going to these NI (National Instruments) Cards.”
And what do the NI cards do?
“Yeah. So this is where we do all our calibrations and scaling. The rest is all software.”
Interesting. So what type of sensors do you have in here?
“So this thing doesn't move (points to arm). But it has a micro gauge and micro sensors in there. They are putting out a low-level signal. (Points to circuitry) And that’s where we need to amplify that signal to be an actual torque.”
Perfect can I try it?
“Sure you can.”
Perfect, Thank you. Okay… (Shawn grunts.)
“The highest was 567 (lb.in).”
That was Vince the camera guy by the way…
So how will this sensor be used anywhere else?
“So I can tell you from the CAT point of view.”
“So what we do is we use this to measure the strength of our CAT parts. So this is an actual torque shaft that we use at CAT. It’s not something that we made for this (USA Science and Engineering Festival). This is an actual torque shaft!”
So this is something you actually use every day.
“Yes.”