This article presents investigation results to the use of single-crystalline silicon as mechanical spring in load cells. As a result of the crystalline structure a very high reproducibility of the material properties is expected. In addition the mechanical aftereffects of single-crystalline silicon are by the factor of 100 smaller than in metallic materials. Performed simulations using the finite element method consider anisotropic and brittle material behavior. It is shown that silicon as mechanical spring material in combination with sputtered metal strain gauges principally can be used for load cells and force sensors.

The international standard IEEE 1451.4 is the basis for transducer electronic data sheets (TEDS), where information related to the transducer like serial number or nominal sensitivity is stored into a chip inside the transducer. For bridge type sensors, with a novel circuit (patent pending) it is possible to read the TEDS information for 6-wire bridge sensors without additional wires by using the sense lines. The paper shows the investigations of the influence of TEDS on measurement results. Voltage ratio calibrations with TEDS between measuring amplifier and calibration unit had been carried out at different carrier frequencies. Verification measurements with the TEDS chip built into a force transducer checked for the technical specifications e.g. temperature behavior of the nominal sensitivity. Additional investigations focus on different linearization methods checked with force and voltage ratio calibrations. With force calibration according to ISO 376 a 3rd degree polynomial equation is calculated from the calibration results. With a new kind of amplifier it is possible to store the coefficients of this polynomial equation and make an online calculation. The results of the measurements when using TEDS to store the coefficients and read into the amplifier are presented.

Only few types of flexible structures are recommended for measuring very large forces. The axisymmetrical ones are best suited in this respect, their maximum strain gauge (tensometrical) sensitivity being ensured in bending. The force transducer body is easy to design by 2D finite element method (FEM) and easy to manufacture. Numerical investigations on various models of N-shaped strain gauged elastic elements are presented together with their advantages in the field of force measurements.

This paper details the results of a bilateral comparison carried out between the national force standard machines of Egypt and the United Kingdom. The results indicate that the uncertainty claims of the two laboratories can, in general, be supported. Recommendations on revised protocols to be used for future comparisons are given.

We propose the optical spatial filtering method, as translational velocity measurement to observe morphological changes of single floating cells in long stretches. This measurement derives the arbitrary component of the spatial frequency from the random refracted index distribution as the periodic light intensity distribution.