Important Force Measurement Practice - Load Cell with a Flat Base

A Load Cell with a Flat Base can be crucial to obtaining great calibration results with load cells. The error is associated with installing a nonflat base on a multi-column cell.   Below is the actual test result we observed on a Revere multi-column cell.  Morehouse received the load cell and tested it with the non-ground base attached to it.

We set up the load cell in our 2,250,000 lbf force machine.  We exercised the load cell 3-4 times and then took three runs of data.  We rotated the load cell 120 degrees between each run to test the repeatability.  The below results are the results from the repeatability due to rotating the load cell with a nonflat base.  We then removed the nonflat base and stoned the bottom of the load cell to make sure it was as flat as we could make it.  We ran the same test and reported the errors below.

the figure above shows five times the measurement error with a nonflat base

A Load Cell with a Flat Base Conclusion:

A nonflat base produced a larger variation in output when the load cell was rotated; this error was five times that of a ground base.   If you are using a load cell with a non-ground base, or if you are using compression pads that are supposed to be flat, you should verify flatness before use.   Top compression pads and load cell bases can usually be machined, stoned, or ground flat.  A flat base or ground compression pad will produce better measurement results.

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