Many of us are familiar with accuracy specifications pertaining to force measurement, usually a percentage of full scale or a percentage of reading. While this is broadly understood, the waters become a bit murkier in applications involving both force and distance measurements.
Many critical test results are values derived from distance, such as spring rate, modulus of elasticity, and elongation at failure. In cases like these, confident and reproducible test methods rely on distance accuracy, making it critical to understand a given force tester’s true distance measurement accuracy.