Donald Loudermilk
PCE Americas, Inc.
www.pce-instruments.com
Force gauges can be used in many situations of daily living when tensile and compressive forces need to be measured. Internal or external load cells convert a force into an electronic signal. The measuring range extends from 0.1 N up to 3,000 kN, depending on the application. Here are some application examples:
Sports
Professional boxing centers often have punching balls as training devices which are equipped with external load cells of pressure gauges to measure the “punching power” of the athlete. These measurements serve as a baseline to document improvement over time.
Visitors of fairs enjoy a much simpler version of this type of force measurement when they play a game of “ring the bell.”
Pull Test
This setup requires a test stand in combination with a force gauge and is mainly used in the field of material testing. It allows examining a material’s tensile strength, stretch ability and breaking force. The results, which such testing yields, can be compared to various norms, which differ depending on the material and its properties.
Debonding Test
This is a deviated version of the pull test. With this test examiners try to determine the force, which is necessary to pull two bonded materials apart. In most cases this bond is an adhesive.
Military
Force gauges are used in the development of rifles and machine guns in order to measure the amount of recoil in prototypes. This is of high importance to guarantee the safety of the user. Force gauges are furthermore integrated into the production process to assure uniform recoil standards.
Safety
Force gauges are applied in many areas where human safety is paramount. Some everyday examples are the load capacity of screws and anchors, the carrying capacity of handrails and banisters and the closing force of automated doors and gates among many others where humans are exposed to a lever.
Ethan Hansen says
I found it interesting how you mentioned how force measurements are used by professional boxers to determine their punching power. My son has wanted to become a professional boxer ever since he was younger and he has chosen to live his life to achieve that. Because I have a broken force tool that would be perfect to measure his punches, I will keep this in mind as we search for a force measurement tool repair near us!