Morehouse Finishes Major Installation at USAF
Morehouse has finished installing and commissioning two Deadweight Machines (Primary Standards) at the USAF. We built this machine during the pandemic, and through all of the issues, it is now running at close to 0.0009 % using the USAF algorithm. We were told that the older machine that this replaced was running at 0.003 %. The USAF seems thrilled to have over a 3x improvement. We are thrilled to finish our most significant installation yet, as it is for the USAF primary lab, which will disseminate force measurements to all other USAF labs.
Others who bid on this project said the machine could not be built for what we quoted. We are thrilled to prove the naysayers wrong and continue to Raise the Standard. The most accurate load cell calibration comes from Morehouse deadweight machines.
NIST Calibrates Our Masses for New Air Force Deadweight Machines
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has finished calibrating several dozen large metal masses, which will be used to build a pair of deadweight machines being manufactured by us here at Morehouse Instrument Company. The larger of the two new deadweight machines will be capable of measuring forces up to 453.7 kN (102,000 lbf). The smaller one will handle forces up to 133.4 kN (30,000 lbf). These new deadweight machines will be used to calibrate force measurement devices and equipment that can be used to measure the thrust of a rocket engine or the weight of an aircraft before and after fueling.
Why the Airforce Choose Us
Shane Popson, AFMETCAL Mechanical Engineer and project lead for the Founders Force Laboratory, has been working to create this facility since he was hired by the Air Force in 2016.
“I’ve been working on this since day one,” he said. “To see it all come together is just incredibly rewarding. We are very excited as a program to have these machines installed and ready to start using them to get our products to Airmen in the field.”
Many members of the AFMETCAL team visited Morehouse several times before putting the machine out for bid. Once the bidding process closed, Morehouse was less expensive by a large margin and had demonstrated technical ability where the USAF knew they would get the best machine on the market as Morehouse has built several deadweight machines for NMIs and primary labs around the world. The first deadweight machines were built in the 1950s, giving Morehouse 70-plus years of deadweight machine design experience.
All Morehouse Deadweight Machines make full use of the accuracy of deadweights and are true primary standards. This means there are no multipliers (hydraulic or otherwise), levers, or flexures between the weights of the calibrator and the instrument to be calibrated. Morehouse deadweight machines are capable of calibrating ISO 376 Class 00, ASTM E74 Class AA, AS 2193 Class AA, and other force-measuring devices requiring the utmost accuracy.
We work to change how people think about torque and force measurement. We do this by educating our customers on important metrics, the cause of significant errors, and how to avoid those errors. Our force calibration products are simple to operate, plumb, level, square and rigid. We support those products with our best-in-class calibration service with less than two-week lead times.
At Morehouse, we educate our customers and provide solutions to you. Most of these solutions are available for free to help you make better measurements and can be found here.
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If you have more questions about deadweight machines, need adapters, load cells, calibration, or other questions, don't hesitate to get in touch with us @ 717-843-0081 to talk to a live person or email info@mhforce.com. Visit us on the web at mhforce.com.
