Development of a Hybrid Uni-Axial Strain Transducer for Rail Applications

摘要

This project was to develop a design prototype of a uni-axia strain transducer torecord the strain cycling history of structural components such as rail and bridge members. This strain history can be used to predict remaining fatigue life. The transducer uses the capacitive coupling between an electric field and a field effect transistor gate to measure displacements between a vernier of field emitter and detector arrays. The system can measure displacements as small as 50 Angstroms. A particularly useful feature of this system is that data analysis and storage can be performed on the transducer chip. A prototype was designed, fabricated, and field tested on a rail section near Salt Lake City.