Load Cell for Screw Piling Power Head
AssigneeConcept Torque Solutions Inc.
InventorWayne McILravey
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A system to measure the installation torque of a screw pile comprises machinery suitable to drive the screw pile into the ground, said machinery further comprising a rotary drive suspended by means of a universal joint-type coupler. A load pin, having at least one sensor, is mounted through the universal joint-type coupler as a pivot pin and is oriented within the universal joint-type coupler so that at least some of the installation torque is transmitted through said load pin and is measurable by said at least one sensor. Preferably, a differential bridge network is used to obtain a measurable signal from the plurality of sensors.
Claims24
A load pin for measuring force comprising:
- a differential bridge electronic circuit having a first branch with two gauges mounted to a first planar region and a second branch with two gauges mounted to a second planar region.
A system for measuring force comprising:
- a differential bridge electronic circuit having a first branch with gauges R1 and R2 and a second branch with gauges R3 and R4;
- a first planar region wherein gauges R1 and R2 are mounted to both receive a deformation force in a first direction;
- a second planar region wherein gauges R3 and R4 are mounted to both receive a deformation force in a second direction.
A load pin for measuring force comprising:
- a differential bridge electronic circuit having a first branch with two gauges and a second branch with two gauges;
- a first planar region and a second planar region;
- wherein the gauges are electrically connected such that the two gauges in the first branch of said differential bridge circuit are mounted on the first planar region and the two gauges in the second branch of the differential bridge circuit are mounted on the second planar region.
A method for measuring force comprising:
- providing a load pin having a first planar region with a first branch of an electric circuit with two gauges having parallel lines in a plane and a second planar region with a second branch of the electronic circuit with two gauges having parallel lines in the plane, wherein the gauges are electrically connected such that one branch is mounted on the first planar region and the other branch is mounted on the second planar region;
- applying force to the load pin so that the first branch is deformed by force in a first direction when the second branch is deformed by force in a second direction;
- and
- measuring any unbalance of current flow through the electric circuit to determine an amount of force applied to the load pin.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.