About Force Sensors

Force sensors – also commonly called load cells – are devices that contain strain gauges glued to a steel body. Those strain gauges are connected to form a Wheatstone bridge to convert mechanical stresses into an electrical signal.
Load cells used for weighing applications directly measure the force resulting from the weight of an object due to gravity and thus typically only receive compressive forces.

Flat pressure load cells are the standard solution for weighing applications. These sensors reach excellent accuracy and precision combined with ideal force application by using Lastecken or Kompaktlager. Some models also allow measuring tensile forces.

Rope load cells (also called wire rope load cells or cable clamp-on load cells) measure lateral forces on wire ropes. Thus the measuring principle is that of indirect force measurement. This type of sensor can be mounted quickly and easily on existing hoist ropes.

Strain transducers measure forces parallel to a structure, thus also applying the principle of indirect measurement. They are screwed onto cleats that have to be welded on the monitored structure. Other modifications to the structure, like weakening, are not required.

Both rope load cells and strain transducers allow cost-efficient retrofitting of load monitoring solutions to existing constructions.

Tension links, also called traction rods, measure tensile forces and are commonly mounted at rope endpoints. To achieve even better measurements, our tension links can be supplied with maintenance free spherical plain bearings.

Load pins, also called load measuring pins or load clevis pins, are typically mounted into a pulley and measure the resultant force. We offer special features like lubrication bores with tapered or button head grease fittings. We can also seal the grooves for easy mounting in difficult situations.

Tension links and load pins are well suited for retrofitting on legacy hoistings and cranes.

Measuring rings are a special sensor variant and are typically used in exclusive heavy crane equipment like the Goliath gantry cranes. Due to the tremendous load capacity of those crane systems of more than 1,500t (4x 400t per spreader bar), other sensor types are rather unsuitable.