Structural analysis of automating measurements of floor gradients
Name
772524409-MIT.pdf
Description
Full printable version
Size
3.96 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
57d0f7c1efa4e5bd991c850e2cf350cb
Author(s)
Caplan, Noah S
Advisor(s)
Barbara Hughey.
Date Issued
2011
Publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Abstract
It is useful for one owning or buying a house to be able to assess its structure and identify the existence and severity of any damage. No previously existing method appears to make this assessment easily available. This thesis predicts that architecture will fail in some combination of eleven predictable ways that a simple robot can observe and distinguish by measuring the slope of select points on the floor. This prediction was tested on a case study house, and the model predicted 78.7% of the observed contour. A compact robot was fabricated and measurements of inclination were compared with those of a standard digital inclinometer. The ratio of the angle measured with the robot to that measured with the inclinometer was found to be 1.034 ± 0.193. This proof-of-concept study indicates that an inexpensive robot could be developed as a commercial product capable of assessing the structural safety of common houses.
Description
Thesis (S.B.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, 2011.
Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 26).
Subjects
Mechanical Engineering.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering
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copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but
reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written
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