LABVIEW LINEAR HEAT CONDUCTION EXPERIMENT MILBEN B. KUNAN Project Supervisor: Puan Hanim Salleh ATHESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING. COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING, UNIVERSITY TENAGA NASIONAL, 2001DECLARATION Thereby declare that this thesis, submitted to Universiti Tenaga Nasional as a partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering has not been submitted as an exercise for a degree at any other university. I also certify that the work described here is entirely my own except for excerpts and summaries whose sources are appropriately cited in the references. This thesis may be made available within the university library and may be photocopied or loaned to other libraries for the purposes of consultation. | 15 OKTOBER 2001 Milben B. Kunan MEOI651APPROVAL SHEET This project report entitled: “LabVIEW Linear Heat Conduction Experiment”, | submitted by: Milben B. Kunan, In partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering, University Tenaga Nasional has been accepted. Supervisor: Puan Hanim Salleh f Signature: Date: 15 Oktober 2001 WY pnABSTRACT The main objective of performing experiment using LabVIEW is to promote better conduct of experiment with data, graphs and calculations being display automatically. This paper describes a modified LabVIEW experiment using computer-based system for data acquisition and control that have been installed in a laboratory. The previous experiment in this project is the ‘Heat Bar Temperature Control Experiment’ which which has being changed to ‘LabVIEW Linear Heat Conduction Experiment’, This system uses eight channels of thermocouple to sense the heat distribution along a heat- conducting bar and the variation of temperature is controlled by a heater through personal computer using computer programming called the LabVIEW™. Signal conditioning modules used in this experiment consist of a digital input output (D VO), an analog output (AO), a thermocouple input and a converter. The programs is used for parameter identification of the system and then used to tune the controller action (proportional and/or integral actions). From the experiment the unknown metal is determined by calculating the thermal conductivity using the graph of Temperature versus Distance from the LabVIEW front panel graph.TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION APPROVAL SHEET ABSTRACT TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES LIST OF FIGURE CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Objectives 1.2 Importance Of Project, 1.3 Literature Review CHAPTER 2: HEAT CONDUCTION THEORY CHAPTER 3: SYSTEM SETUP CHAPTER 4: HEAT CONDUCTION EXPERIMENT CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSION CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION REFERENCES APPENDICES, PageLIST OF TABLES Table No. 4.1 Average temperature for each nodes dependent over time 4.2 Average Temperature for nodes dependent over current 4.3 Comparison of Materials Thermal ConductivityLIST OF FIGURES Figure No 1.1 Temperature Converter Front Panel and Block Diagram 1.2 I-Temperature Converter SubVI 2.1 Heat Bar (galvanized Metal) Diagram 3.1 System setup of the experiment 3.2 Temperature Control VI Hierarchy 3.3 Main Front Panel (Modified) 3.4 Main Control Panel (Actual) 3.5 New SubVI 3.6 Overall Block Diagram 3.7: Panel for Temperature SubVI 38 Temperature Converting Block Diagram 3.9 Measured Voltage subVI Panel 3.10 Measured Voltage subVI Block Diagram 3.11 Mean subVI Panel 3.12 Mean Block Diagram 3.13 General Polynomial Fit Panel 3.14 General Polynomial Fit Block Diagram 273.15 General LS Linear Fit Panel 3.16 General LS Linear Fit Block Diagram 4.1 Graph of Temperature Vs. Time 4.2 Graph of Temperature Vs. DistanceCHAPTERI INTRODUCTION 1.1 Objective. The main objective of this project is to modify the control interface of the Temperature Control Experiment via the Intemet from Mr. Najmuddin project. The project will be focusing entirely on the modification of the LabVIEWrw so that the program will be more compatible and multi-functional 1.2 Importance of the Project Using the LabVIEW to do experiment can gives new altemative and perspective towards the laboratory session therefore it can be more interesting for students. For students, this kind of application can save their time for the lab session period because all the experiment readings are being shown automatically on the computer. Furthermore, using LabVIEW: application also can give them the opportunity to lean new program that is more powerful and user friendly. In fact, there are too many laboratories coursessuch as Thermofluid, Engineering Materials, Heat Transfer and Engineering Measurement in university; therefore the best altemative to lear these courses is by using LabVIEWn«. This is because this LabVIEW: program can also be connected via the internet and from this capability, it could give students the opportunity to access the laboratory experiment that have internet capabilities at their own time. 1.3 Literature Survey ‘Some works have been done related to monitoring and controlling a system through the Internet. W. Holmes, Jr., D. E McMillan, and R. R Smith used Lab VIEW to Access and control a Harsh Environment Laboratory through Internet (1996). The goal of this project ‘was to develop an Internet-accessible data acquisition and control system with real time video conferencing capabilities for a harsh environment test bed. LabVIEW, or Laboratory Virtual Instrument Engineering Workbench, is a graphical programming language, which has become prevalent throughout research labs, academia, and industry and is used as the standard for instrument control software and data acquisition. LabVIEW is a powerful and versatile analysis and instrumentation software system, and creating a LabVIEW programs, or virtual instrument (VI), is fairly simple. LabVIEW’s perceptive user interface makes writing and utilizing programs enjoyable and fun. LabVIEW strays from the sequential nature of traditional programming languages and lineaments an easy-to-use graphical programming environment, including all of the toolsnecessary for data acquisition, data analysis, and presentation of results. With its graphical programming language, called "G", programming is done using a graphical block diagram that compiles into machine code. Perfect for countless numbers of applications, LabVIEW helps to solve many types of problems in only a fraction of the time and headaches it would take to compose “conventional” code. LabVIEW offers more flexibility than standard laboratory instruments because it is software-based. Using LabVIEW, the user can originate exactly the type of virtual instrument needed, when needed, and at a fraction of the cost of conventional instruments. When needs change, modifications of virtual instruments can be done in moments. LabVIEW has expansive libraries of functions and subroutines to assist with most programming tasks, without the fuss of pointers, memory allocation, and other restricted programming problems found in standard programming languages. Because of LabVIEW’s graphical nature, itis innately a data presentation package. Output appears in any structure you desire. Charts, graphs, and user-defined graphics include just a fraction of available output options. In 1983, National Instruments began to examine ways to decrease the time needed to program instrumentation systems, Through its effort, the LabVIEW virtual instrument concept arrived: perceptive front panel user interfaces combined with an ingenious block diagram programming methodology to yield an efficient, software-based graphical instrumentation system,LabVIEW programs are referred to as virtual instruments (VIs) because their appearance and operation duplicate actual instruments. However, behind the scenes they are comparable to main programs, functions, and subroutines from popular programming languages like C or BASIC. A VI has three main parts Figure 1.1: Temperature Converter Front Panel and Block Diagram (http://chem.engr-ute.edw/) The front panel on the left side in Figure 1.1 is the interactive user interface of a VI. It is named a front panel because it stimulates the front panel of a physical instrument. The front panel can include knobs, push buttons, graphs, and various other controls (which are user inputs) and indicators( which are program outputs). The block diagram shown on the right side in Figure 1.1 is the Vis source code, designed in LabVIEW’s graphical programming language, G. The block diagram is the actual executable program. The components of a block diagram are lower- level Vis, built functions, cot ntrol structures, tants, and program execution © You draw wires to connect the corresponding objects together to indicate the flow of data between each of them. Front panel objects have analogous terminals onthe block diagram so data can pass easily from the user to the program and back to the user. Hae : Figure 1.2: Temperature Converter SubVI (http://chem engr.ute.edu/) In order to use a VI as a subVI in the block diagram of another VI, it is essential that it contain an icon and a connector. A VI that is used within another VI is called a subVI and is similar to a subroutine in any other language (as shown in Figure 1.2). The icon is a VI’s pictorial representation and is utilized as an object in the block diagram of another VI. A VI's connector is the mechanism used to wire data into the VI from block diagrams when the VI is used as a subVI. Similar to parameters of a subroutine, the connector defines the inputs and outputs of the Vi“Virtual instruments are Modular and hierarchical. They can be used as top-level programs or subprograms. With this structure, LabVIEW encourages the concept of modular programming. First, divide the tasks into a series of simple subtasks. Next, construct a VI to achieve each subtask and then combine those Vis on a top-level block diagram to complete the larger task” www cet niu.edwfacul tvikostic/NTWeek_par_er html Modular programming is advantageous because one can execute each subVI by itself, which facilitates debugging. Furthermore, many low-level subVIs often perform tasks ‘common to many applications and can be used independently by each individual application. For a reference, a few common LabVIEW terms with their conventional programming equivalents are listed below.CHAPTER IT HEAT CONDUCTION THEORY 2.1 Theory Incopera (1998: 2), “Heat transfer (or heat) is energy transit due to temperature difference 2)”. Heat can be transferred through three mediums, there are through conduction, convection and radiation, For this particular project heat is transferred through ‘conduction process. Conduction is the process where heat is transferred through solid or stationary fluid, which occurs in the direction of decreasing temperature. The temperature distribution in the heat bar can be determined by solving the heat equation with the proper boundary condition. Generally, heat is defined as energy transfer due to the temperature gradients or difference between two points. One of the most common heat transfer modes, which is conduction heat transfer, is defines as heat transferred by molecules that travel a very short distance (~0.6 ym) before colliding with another molecules and exchanging energy. Fourier’s Law is phenomenological; that is, it is developed from observed phenomena. Hence the rate equation is viewed as a generalization based on much experimental evidence. For steady state conditions with no energy generation and energy sink within the heat bar, the appropriate heat equation:Heat source Figure 2.1: Heat Bar (galvanized-metal) Diagram From Figure 2.1, the heat source will heat the bar from the left side where the first node of the bar will encounter the heat and then the heat will flow until the last node encounter the same heat. This heat will flow through conduction process and may take quite some time to reach the final node. The formula for this basic process is liked equation 2.1 where the temperature distribution dependent over the length of the heat bar.If the thermal conductivity of the heat bar material is assumed to be constant, the equation may be integrated twice to obtain general solution. T(x) =Cix+ Cz To obtain the constant of integration, C; and C2, boundary condition must be introduced. Apply conditions of the first kind at x = 0 and x= L, in which case TO=Ts ——~(23) and TQ) =Ts2 ‘Applying the condition at x = 0 to the general solution, it follows that Ter = Cr —(2.5) Similarly, at x=L Teg = GL + C2) =CiL + Ta —~(2.6) In which case (Ta-TuL=C, 2.7) Substituting into the general solution, the temperature distribution is thenTQ) =(T.2- Tra) WL + Tar ——(2.8) In general assumption, the heat distribution can be described using Fourier’s Law: Heat Flux, q":=-k dT/dx (Wim’) —(2.9) Or Equation (1) can be written as q's =-K(Tya — Taay/L (W/m?) —(2.10) Where k= thermal conductivity T.1 = Temperature at node n T,2=Temperature at node n-1 ip Length of the bar. The efficiency of the experiment can be calculated by manipulating the equations above. The result obtained in the experiment is temperature, T,, VS L (the length of the heat bar) where the nodes are located, xq. Thus equation (2) can be written as: K=q"(dT/dx) (W/m) —2.11) 10u ‘The slope of the linear region of the graph plotted will be the value of thermal conductivity, k of the bar. With known value q”, and the value dT/dx obtained from the graph, the thermal conductivity k can be determined by calculation.CHAPTER III SYSTEM SETUP 3.1 Overview System Setup Referring to Figure 4.1, the figure shows the arrangement of the project setup. Its an arrangement of the connection of the project from the computer where the computer will be equipped with LabVIEW to the converter and module is connected to the experiment. The computer is equipped with the program that will be used to control the experiment automatically, In the converter and module part, this consist of a set of electrical units that will be used to translate the command that was sent by the programming from the computer and give the order to the experiment, which is translating digital to analog signal. Then the analog data from the experiment will be sent to the converter and module so that it will translate itback to digital so that the output of the experiment can be viewed in the program. The devices in this set of unit are:13 ‘+ Converter Module (I-7520) ‘© Thermocouple Input Module (I-7018) ‘* Analog Output Module (1-7021) © Digital Input/Output Module (1-7050) The specification of all these modules can be viewed in the Appendix A and the overall connection diagram of this project is shown in Figure 4.2. From the figure, the alternate current operated cooling fan is located behind the heater and heat bar. The function to have the fan in this experiment is to avoid overheating and for safety precaution. The thermocouples are connected to the heat bar then the heat bar is connected to the heater. The thermocouple is used to measure the temperature. There are eight thermocouple wires connected to eight notches as the heat distributed through the bar. The temperatures on the notches are measured in the form of voltage signals by the thermocouple input module. The material composition of the heat bar is from scrap galvanized-metal and the actual metal of this bar is not known until the experiment has been done. The heat bar has eight drilled holes on its face to allow the attachment of the thermocouple wires. These wires are connected to the 1-7018 thermocouple module terminals.4 ‘The heat-prove glass, which encloses the fan, heater and heat bar is to ensure the surroundings temperature does not largely affect the temperature readings taken and therefore the heat can be kept in an enclosed area (insulation), The heat-prove glass can hold the temperature up to 300 °C. The 1-7520 is a remote controllable data acquisition module. The I-70S0 converts analog input from physical apparatus to digital signals for further process. The 1-7520 module is connected to the thermocouple input module, I-7018. The temperature readings obtained at each notch from 1-7018 will be passes through to I-7050 for data acquisition process, ‘The 1-7018 will read the degree of hotness in milivolts (voltage) form and send analog signals to the converter before being sent to the computer. The analog output module, 1-7021 is the signal conditioning process module. This module can provide electrical signal in form of current and voltage to the physical components. ‘The digital input/output module is the I-7050. For this project, only digital output is used because the module will receive “command” from the PC. Digital input/output (DIO) is used on Personal data Acquisition (PCDAQ) system to control processes, generate patterns for testing and communicate with peripheral physical equipment.[& sutanon mL mn (s) rer) [5] woe if TT 7 in Sant Figure 3.1 System Setup of the Experiment16 3.2 LabVIEW Bishop, Robert H. (1998), “To implementation of instrument control via computers, LabVIEW environment was adopted. LabVIEW (Laboratory Virtual Instrument Engineering Workbench) is a powerful instrumentation and analysis programming language for PCs running Microsoft Windows and various operating systems”. LabVIEW integrates data acquisition, analysis, and presentation in one system, For acquiring data and controlling instruments, LabVIEW supports RS-232/422, IEEE488.2 (GPIB), and VXI, including Virtual Instrument Software Architecture (VISA) functions, as well as plug-in data acquisition (DAQ) boards. The GPIB card is connected to the instruments, which support SCPI (Standard Commands for Programmable Instruments) command structures defined in IEBE488.2. F 3.3 LabVIEW Application This project is controlled by LabVIEW programming. The program will display the results of the experiment in the form of graph and temperature indicators. In order for the experiment apparatus to be accessible through LabVIEW, it needs several Vis, sub-VIs, control panel and the icon or connecter. The flow of the programming between the main VI and the sub Vis can be more understandable by referring to the Vis hierarchy in Figure 3.2.17 Figure 3.2 consist of the main Front Panel for the control of the experiment. Its sub-VIs, the “Temperature Control.vi” will call the “Temp Ctr!” sub-Vi when the user runs the program. The “Temp Ctrl” sub-VI on the other hand will call its sub-VI, which is the “Port Comm.vi”. This pseudo also applies to other sub-VIs under them namely the “opencom.vi”, “SendReceCmd.vi”, “Errhandle.vi, “Closecom.vi” and “ErrorMSG.vi” respectively. ey Figure 3.2: The Temperature Control VI hierarchy18 34 Control Panel of Linear Heat Conduction Experiment From the control panel in Figure 4.3, there are two main graphs added which are the graph Temperature in degree Celsius versus Time in minutes and the graph Temperature (Celsius) versus Distance (meter). There are also mean temperature, maximum temperature and minimum temperature for both the graph . This control panel consists of “Main Power” control, “Manual Control” and waveform graph. The user needs to turn the main power on and set all the desired parameters before the programmed can be run, The parameters can be set by turning the knob or entering the value on the provided boxes. The temperature readings on the thermocouple wire are being plot on the two graphs. The second graph has the polynomial fit and linear fit function graph which will linearizing the graph in order to find the slope easily Figure 3.3: Main Front Panel (Modified)19 From Figure 3.4, it is the actual control panel which has been modified to control panel in Figure 3.3. The graph in the actual front panel does not have the linear fit graph and the maximum, minimum and mean value for the graph. The front panel also has manual and automatic control which is confusing, therefore for the modified front panel it has only manual control which has automatic indicator such has the fan status. Figure 3.4: Main Control Panel ~ Actual (Najmuddin, 2001)3.5 The New SubVI Added The new subVI is used to run the two graphs and to calculate the mean, max and min temperature for the first graph. This SubVI is added to the main subVI and can be run only when the LabVIEW is connected to the hardware. This due to the time out error (ERROR 15), which will terminate any program when the program is disconnected with the hardware. The overall block diagram for this project is shown in Figure 3.4. On this block diagram the new VI already changed to subV1 and the block diagram has been simplified. Ri Figure 3.5: New SubVI21 3.6 Overall Block Diagram From Figure 3.5, the subV1 is connected through its main control configuration where all the input and output functioning here, The graph is made when the output from the eight- thermocouple signals connected to the new subVI and then these signals are converted to the desired data that appears on the control panel, i | Figure 3.6: Overall Block Diagram2 Figure 3.7 is the subVI for temperature control. There are two ways of converting the data whether from °Celcius to “Fahrenheit or from °Fahrenheit to “Celcius and the initial temperature can be set from 0 to 100, Figure 3.7: Panel for Temperature SubVI Figure 3.8 is the block diagram of he Temperature Control subVI. From the figure, the equation of converting “Fahrenheit to "Celcius is included in the box of true or false probability. If the program sense a degree Fahrenheit signal which is true the block diagram will convert it using the equation of °Celcius = 9/5*( Fahrenheit }+32.Figure 3.8: Temperature Converting Block Diagram 3.9 below is the Measured Voltage sub VI. There are two main inputs, which are ‘the board ID, and the channel. The board ID is the identification on which board the input es and the channel is which thermocouple the voltage comes. Then the voltage is measured. Figure 3.9: Measured Voltage subVI PanelFrom Figure 3.10, the block diagram is to calculate the readings and changed it to the measured voltage. + §$ whe ma o Figure 3.10; Measured Voltage subVI Block Diagram Figure 3.11 below is the subVI on how to calculate Mean. The temperature input data will be sent here in order to calculate the mean. The error indicator is just for warning whether there is error when the program is running.Figure 3.11: Mean suBVI Panel Figure 3.12 is the block diagram of calculating mean where the input X is come from the thermocouple and the analysis using the mean subpallete. The mean VI retums the average of the temperature measurements. The VI bundles the data array with initial X value Of 0 and a delta X value of 0.25, The delta X value of 0.25 is required so that the VI plots the temperature array points every 0.25 seconds on the waveform graph. Figure 3.12: Mean Block Diagram.26 Figure 3.13 is the general polynomial Fit SubVI. This VI can be found in the mathematics and Curve Fitting subpallete, This VI returns an array that is a polynomial fit to the temperature array. General polynomial fit VI determines the best fit for the ‘points in the temperature array. Figure 3.13: General Polynomial Fit Panel27 From Figure 3.14 below, the polynomial fit is situated in middle in the box. This block diagram will fit the temperature data up to fifth order and can also fit the graph for fourth, third, second or first order graphs. Figure 3.14; General Polynomial Fit Block Diagram‘The subVI in Figure 3.15 below shows the general LS linear fit panel. This subVI is used to linearized the linear graph so that it will be linear and the equation of the graph can be calculated. Figure 3.15: General LS Linear Fit Panel29 Figure 3.16 below is the block diagram of General Ls Linear Fit subVI panel, The main subpallette used is the best fit subpallette. This block diagram is important in order to find the slope of the graph for linear graph. covariance selectof aa} — Figure 3.16; General LS Linear Fit Block Diagram