Study of mechanical properties of steel plate using Arduino microcontroller

This paper presents the use of an open source-based technology, Arduino microcontroller, which is used for strain measurement by using strain gauge. The test was carried out in two variations, simply support beam and cantilever beam. This research used steel plates as specimens with 600mm length, 25mm width, and 3mm thickness. Specimen equipped with 3 numbers of strain gauge and a dial gauge to control the displacement that occurs. Each step of loading adds 2N until reach 10 N for simple beam and 6N for cantilever beam. The results show that in the compression zone, strain gauge show a negative value as the load increment, in other side the tensile zone, strain gauge show a positive value as the load increment. Data results are consistent in the two variations of the research conducted. The fluctuation of strain that occurs can be recorded properly by the Arduino microcontroller system equipped with a BF120 sensor, although it still has a relative high noise from the raw data recorded.