Load Measurement Systems - Transducers
Measurement Technology NW designs a wide range of rugged, high-quality sensors - from load cells, load pins, tension links, instrumented shackles to many other load and rotational measurement systems for construction, oil & gas, offshore and hazardous environments.
For over 25 years MTNW's in-house design and engineering team has designed sensors, provided system integration and completed installation/commissioning services for beginning to end solutions.
Our products and customer applications include:
- Load Pins for various oil & gas and oceanographic applications
- Running line tensiometers for offshore mooring and utility cable pulling operations
- Instrumented shackles for retrofitting CTD winches in ocean research
- Tension links for cranes, marine terminals, and hoist applications
- Instrumentation to provide complete load measurement systems.
- Load cells with unusually high factors of safety for critical applications
What is a load cell?
A load cell is a transducer that converts an applied force into either an analog or digital electrical signal. The conversion is achieved by the physical deformation of resistive foil strain gages which are bonded internally to the load cell. The internal strain gages are wired to form a Wheatstone bridge configuration. Precision excitation voltage is required and the expected electrical output typically varies from 5-100 mV. Internal amplifiers can be used to provide higher level analog outputs or digital outputs. Load cells can be distinguished according to the way they detect weight (bending, shear, compression, tension, etc) and the way they detect pressure (hydraulic, pneumatic, etc).