Manage Measurement Task keeps track of measurements used in modal analysis.

Definition of Measurement Project, Test Setup, Data Set and Channel

All measurements and the corresponding information are collected in a single project object called the Measurement Project. Typically for modal analysis of a structure, there is at least a single recording made. Such record is denoted as Data Set and it stores as many Channels as there are sensors. The experiment that comprises of data measured in the positions of the sensors is stored in a Test Setup. In some cases it is necessary to move some of the sensors to new positions, keeping some in a fixed reference. Moving the sensors to a new position means that a new Test Setup is created, and its recording is stored in the corresponding Data Set.

 

Sometimes a measurement will be repeated and one might not know which to use in advance. Such measurements can be uploaded to a multiple Data Sets associated with a single Test Setup. A single Data Set, however, can be analyzed further in one Test Setup, thus unused measurements must be rendered inactive.

The tree organization of such measurement project lists as follows:

• Measurement Project Item (The one and only)
• • Test Setup Item 1 (First position of the sensors)
  • • Data Set Item 1 (First recording- Active)
    • • Channel Item 1 (Sensor 1)
      • Channel Item 2 (Sensor 2)
    • Data Set Item 2 (Second recording- Inactive)
    • • Channel Item 1 (Sensor 1)
      • Channel Item 2 (Sensor 2)
  • Test Setup Item 2 (Second position of the sensors)
  • • Data Set Item 1 (First recording- Active)
    • • Channel Item 1 (Sensor 1)
      • Channel Item 2 (Sensor 2)

The Project Tree View 

The project tree visualizes organization of the project in a simplified manner, as it only shows the channels of the active Data Set of a Test Setup.

An example of the organization is shown below using the example data located in the folder Examples\HCTBuilding\ which comes from measurements of the Heritage Court Tower building in Vancouver, performed by Professor Carlos Ventura from The University of British Columbia, see picture below.

The measurement campaign was divided into four Test Setups where each of them spanned a couple floors of the building. The first test setup is labeled Measurement 1 and the second Measurement 2, and so on. The sensors that are moved are Transducer 1, Transducer 2 and so on, and the sensors kept at the reference positions are called Ref. Transducer 1 and Ref. Transducer 2. The Channels of sensors being moved around are automatically colored green whereas the reference sensors are colored blue. Any Test Setup or Channel disconnected from the analysis is colored red.

 

The Manage Measurements task is designed to:

• Organize the measurements into Test Setups and underlying Data Sets.
• Upload measurement files from various file formats and store then into Data Sets.
• Optionally merge uploaded measurements into an already created Data Set.
• View raw measurement time histories and optionally cut them into a new Data Set.
• Optionally differentiate or integrate measurements and store the results into a new Data Set.

The Manage Measurements Tutorial takes you through the basic steps of this task.