Phone Glass Strength Testing
📍 Duration / Institution
Sep – Dec 2025, University of Pittsburgh
⭐Tags
Mechanical Measurement
Sensor Design & Calibration
Data Acquisition
⭐ Situation + Task
This course project focused on evaluating the ultimate breakage stress of smartphone glass screens. The objective was to design and construct a custom force-sensing system to measure impact-induced strain during a ball drop test, and to compare the measured strength of an aftermarket replacement iPhone screen against expected specifications.
⚙️ Action
Designed a strain gage–based sensing system, optimizing gage placement using bending theory and anticipated impact loading.
Assembled and wired strain gages into a Wheatstone bridge with amplification and filtering to achieve stable signal capture during transient impacts.
Developed and calibrated a MATLAB-based data acquisition workflow, incorporating FFT analysis and signal conversion.
Performed controlled ball drop tests on phone glass and converted measured signals into stress values at failure.
📈 Result
Successfully quantified the ultimate breakage stress of phone glass and validated the experimental results against theoretical expectations, demonstrating a complete workflow from sensor design to impact testing and data analysis.