CASE STUDY

Primary PurposeUpgrade the existing system which relies on a closed set of equipment. The new system allows the customer to customise the way they interface with the sensors and manipulate the data coming out of the system. Increased data safety and redundancy in data-saving, beneficial for the long duration of the tests (months).

The Measurement ProblemCommunicating with a variety of new and old digital probes manufactured and provided by a 3rd party company. Measuring a very small differential voltage for a custom system used by the JRC-IET.

The JRC-IET provides scientific and technical support to different stages of European policy-making in the energy area, on issues related to environmental

protection, safety and security of the citizens, and sustainable development.

The SolutionCustomers’ requirements: Autonomous data-logging system for every creep machine. Every data logger has to be controlled/programmed by a single central PC. Data acquired by each creep rig will have to be plotted on a graphic inter- face on the central PC and should allow a follow-up of the measurement status for each rig. The central PC should also hold a back-up copy of the data acquired by each rig.

After providing a winning proposal to the tender request, work commenced.

Some 3rd party sensors were sent to the Campbell Scientific office in the UK from JRC-IET in Petten and some new sensors were sent direct from the sensor manufacturer.

Campbell Scientific were approached by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) to provide a solution to the public tender for data loggers at the JRC’s Institute for Energy and Transport (JRC-IET) in Petten, The Netherlands.

www.campbellsci.eu

More info: +44 (0)1509 601141

Application:Dataloggers for a creep test laboratory

Location:Netherlands

Contracting Agencies:European Commission Joint Research Centre F04 - Innovative Technologies for Nuclear Reactor Safety

Products Used:CR6, Loggernet Admin, RTMC Pro, LNDB, CR1000 KD, 16gb uSD card, PSU.

Communication Link:TCP/IP

Contributors:Vim Mistry, Francesco Dolci, Jean-Marc Lapetite

Measured Parameters:Temperature, Differential voltage, Displacement

Website link:Creep lab not listed but general list of facilities at JRC-IET can be found at the following link, https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/en/research/facilities/?f[0]=im_field_institutes%3A133

Case Study Summary

JRC-IET Creep Laboratory Datalogging System Design

“The project was for the provision of a network of twelve dataloggers and one central recording unit to secure data recording in the creep Laboratory of the JRC-IET.”“The F04 Unit of the JRC-IET plans to refurbish an existing laboratory for Creep testing. Due to the long nature (weeks and in some cases maybe even for years) of the creep tests, every machine is to be equipped with a self-standing data logger which can transfer data to and be controlled by a central computer.There are twelve rigs present in the laboratory.”

80 Hathern Road, Shepshed, LE12 9GX UK | +(0)1509 828888 | sales@campbellsci.co.uk | wwwcampbellsci.eu UK | AUSTRALIA | BRAZIL | CANADA | CHINA | COSTA RICA | FRANCE | GERMANY | SOUTH AFRICA | SPAIN | USA

© 2012Campbell Scientific

March 18, 2015

Measurements: Temperature Number of sensors to be measured – 3Type of signal – temperatureType of sensor – Type STemperature range – 0-1260 °C

Differential voltageNumber of sensors to be measured – 3Type of signal – differential 0-15 mVType of sensor – house builtVoltage range – 0.1 mV to 0.05 mV to a maximum of 15 to 20 mVNoise rejection – yes

Displacement Number of sensors to be measured – 2Type of signal – digital Communication method – RS232Type of sensor – LVDTBit rate – 1 start 8 data 1 odd parity 1 stop bit

Data StorageThe data storage of the loggers should be in the order of seconds for the first hour of the experiment and then follow with a frequency of once every hour.

Data logging speed should be automatically adjusted if any signal from the rig changes abruptly.

Data are acquired continuously over a period ranging from weeks to years.

A demonstration program was written and developed by Campbell Scientific and used to test/prove the whole system would work.

Installation and training on site to show the customer how to set up the data logger and how they could change the demonstration program to develop their own custom system.

Data to be collected via Loggernet and then can be pushed to a database using LNDB.

Data to be viewed in real time using RTMC Pro on the PC, an embedded RTMC screen hosted on the datalogger (which can be accessed via any machine on the same IP connection) or via a CR1000KD. Historic data also viewable via ViewPro and then can be exported to additional formats such as CSV.

Scheduled collection of data via Loggernet Admin (no user interaction required and data is automatically collected).

The customer wanted to use a new USB sensor, however we provided a solution that used RS232 and worked with the existing digital sensors they had.

The 3rd party sensors operated on a bus which was a proprietary protocol running at 187.5k baud. We did not use this. However we did invest some development time to looking into this.

The data collected by the system is then used for analysis and simulations.

Data redundancy - the system had a level of redundancy to minimise data loss. Data is first collected on the dataloggers memory. A copy is stored on a microSD card on the datalogger. The data is also then collected by Loggernet on the PC on a scheduled collection basis. The data can then be pushed to a server via LNDB. At each stage a certain level of data is always retained.

Figure 1 – Design scheme of system