Force Gauges

Force

Force can be thought of or defined as an interaction that causes an object to be pushed, pulled, or impacted in some other way that affects the object or its characteristics. Force can be applied in both a given magnitude and direction and as such is a vector quantity.

Force gauges deal with the measurement of mechanical forces that are applied to objects. These forces are typically a push or a pull force, also called compressive or tensile forces.

Force Gauges

Force gauges are measuring instruments that are used to quantify the magnitude of the force applied to an object during test or operation. These instruments are used in a wide variety of industries and applications, most typically in research and development, production operations, or for test and quality control purposes. A common use of force gauges is to perform push or pull tests. For this reason, force gauges are also known as push pull force gauges or tension and compression force gauges.

Types of force Gauges

Force gauges generally consist of two primary types:

• Mechanical (Analog) Force Gauges
• Digital Force Gauges

Mechanical Force Gauges

Mechanical force gauges make use of a load cell or spring to covert the magnitude of the force being measured into a calibrated force value that is displayed by a needle position against a graduated dial indicator. This type of force gauge is durable, simple to use, easily transported, and being mechanical in nature does not require electrical power to operate.

Mechanical force gauges have a few limitations. First, while they display results on the dial indicator as force conditions change, they are not capable of sampling and holding values over time. Most devices can hold peak values only. In addition, the dials are set to record in a single measurement system and unit of measure, such as Newtons. If different units of measurements are required, you will need multiple gauges or conversions.

Digital Force Gauges

In place of dial indicator with a needle, digital force gauges use a load cell or strain gauge that translates the magnitude of the applied or measured force to an electrical signal that can be quantified, calibrated, and digitized to display directly. While digital force gauges can be more expensive and do require battery power to operate, they do have the ability to sample, record, and store data on the measured values over time, thus providing additional insight into the characteristics of the measurement being made. They can also provide measurements of average as well as peak force values and are better suited to measure rapidly changing values of force such as in impact testing. Plus, many models have the capacity for the user to select the desired unit of measure in which readings should be displayed. For these reasons, digital force gauges are largely becoming the instrument of choice for metrology applications involving force measurement.

At HTA Instrumentation, we manufacture quality and accurate force gauges for your Instrumentation needs.