Comparative Study of the Strain Signal and the Edited Strain Signal

Abstract

This paper presents the comparative study between the strain signal and its edited signal. In this study, a fatigue strain loading was measured on an automobile coil spring, and the purpose to analyse this component is because it been identified as one of the critical component in an automobile. The strain signal editing process was performed by removing low amplitude cycles contained in the original signal using the short-time Fourier transform (STFT) method. This low amplitude cycles were eliminated based on the cut-off level of the signal energy distribution in the time representation. The original and edited strain signals were then analysed for predicting the fatigue damage of the coil spring. A comparison study of the fatigue damage and the most damaged zone obtained from the strain signal and the edited strain signal was also carried out. It was found that, the prediction of the fatigue damage and the most damages zone for both signals was same. Hence, the shortened signal can be used in the laboratory fatigue testing for the purposes of accelerated fatigue testing.