Development and Metrological Evaluation of a Force Transducer for Industrial Application

Abstract

The present investigation reports the development of a force transducer for industrial applications with facile design and manufacturing objectives. The design of the force transducer is based on the analytical and computational approaches, followed by the experimental verification. Factors such as stress, strain and deflection of the force transducer were evaluated while conducting a rigorous assessment of the proposed force transducer. Al 7075 (T6) grade of aluminum alloy has been used as the material for fabrication of the force transducer with a nominal capacity of 2 kN. The fabricated force transducer as per the proposed design has also been investigated for geometrical and dimensional accuracy using precision coordinate measuring machine (CMM). Metrological characterization as per ISO 376: 2011 revealed that uncertainty of measurements is within 0.05 %, which includes relative uncertainty of the force transducer the factors such as repeatability, reproducibility, reversibility, interpolation, resolution, zero offset. Based on the above investigations, it has been found that the designed force transducer is of low cost ($ 200-$ 300), ease to manufacturing, and precise enough (0.05 % uncertainty of measurement) force transducer for force measurement up to 2 kN. The developed force transducer offers sensitivity up to of 0.2 N or better.