Using the Mass Loss Calorimeter
About the Mass Loss Calorimeter (MLC)
- The MLC is a device used to characterize the thermal degradation of materials, specifically the mass loss due to an incident heat flux and ignition event.
- The MLC is composed of two major components: The heating coil that heats the sample and the load cell that records mass loss data
Setting up the MLC
- Plug the orange cord into the 30 Amp outlet.
- Connect a laptop with the AED software to the load cell.
Using the AED Panel
The AED Panel is the primary program to obtain mass loss data from the MCL
- Go to the Start Menu and find the "AED_PanelE3_V3" program
- When open, in the Select Communication mode (bus) drop-down menu choose the "PC-COMport (main channel, RS232 or RS485)" option
- After selecting the correct communication mode click on the the "UART (COM_Port)" Tab
- On the left there will be three drop-down menus. In the first drop-down menu under "COM-Port", choose the third option.
- The other two options may be left as is
- With the correct com-port configured the load cell can now be configured
- Move from the "Communication" tab to the "Measure" tab
- The first sub-tab, "Active Channel", can be used to tare the load cell, setup filters, etc.
- The filter drop-down menus are located in the center of the screen
- The first drop-down menu under the ADC block can be left as is, the second drop-down menu allows you to select what frequencies to pass through. For our purposes 0.25Hz is sufficient.
- While still under the main "Measure" tab, select the second sub tab: "Measure32_setup"
- The "Mode" block can be left alone. Under the "File" block switch the Mode from "OFF" to "automatical"
- The second box represents the number of samples to be taken. The third drop-down menu represents the period at which data is taken.
- After selecting the data writing criteria the data can be written to a file
- While still under the main "Measure" tab, select the third sub tab: "Measure32_display"
- Click "start" on the bottom right (Note: after clicking start the button name will change to "stop") and a pop-up window will appear to allow you to change the file name
- Enter the desired file name and click "save". Once the "save" button is hit the program will start recording data at the specified rate and time specified in the "Measure32_setup" section
- The measured value will appear under the ADR0 block and the amount of time left in the data acquisition will appear next to "File active:" near the bottom of the window.
- To stop the program, either after data acquisition has finished or mid-way into data acquisition, the "stop" button can be pressed
Using the Temperature Controller
- Power on the heating coil by flipping the top switch to the right. The Temperature Controller should already be configured to a certain control setting.
- To change the desired temperature (green in the above picture), simply use the arrow buttons on the bottom of the temperature controller.
- The red numerals indicate the current temperature of the coil and the green the desired temperature.
- Temperature is displayed in Kelvins. THE TEMPERATURE SHOULD NOT EXCEED 1073 K. This is the maximum operating temperature of the heating coil.
- Documentation can be found by accessing the barn/Projects/Mass Loss Calorimeter/Component Manuals/M2943.pdf
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