A load cell is a transducer. It’s a mechanical electrical component used in various industries. Application field varies from personal health care to large scale / heavy scale manufacturing industries. It is also used in automation and security systems.
When ever the load is applied the sensing element changes its shape depending upon the stress, tension or compression developed. There are various types like capacitance or strain gauge based.
In modern market strain gauge based load cells are widely used.The working depends upon Wheatstones’ bridge circuit. This circuit when invented didn’t use strain gauge. When under load, force or pressure the resistance in strain gauges change and also the flow of current. So we can conclude that load or force applied is converted into change in resistance and thus it is called as transducer. The change in resistance is directly proportional to the applied force or load or pressure. To make the physical force or load human readable we need electronic circuit system which is calibrated to show equivalent current change to load proportion. The electronic circuit should be calibrated properly to show actual force or weight applied.
The load cell has found various applications:-
- Security system.
- Weighing scales.
- Personal scales.
- Defence Industry.
- Laboratory weighing equipments.
- Pharma Industries.
- Industrial Automation.
- Tank or Silo weighing.
- Pressure sensing of fluids.
- Material testing.
- Construction Industry to test the strength of pillars and base of the building and many more endless applications.
Capacitance based cells are also available but are bit complicated to manufacture. Strain gauges are easily available from manufacturers and are also cheaper than capacitance sensors, so nowadays strain gauge based cells are widely used.
