Design, Development, and Characterization of Cross Beam Force Transducer for Low Force Measurement

This study addresses the growing need for precise static low-force measurement in industries and metrology, driven by technological advancements and a trend toward miniaturization. Existing commercially available static force transducers can do force measurements with precision but these transducers face significant challenges in their development for low force measurement due to the irregular shapes of the spring element. Additionally, in the literature, some low-force sensors are also described for static low-force measurement but they possess poor metrology characteristics such as linearity, repeatability, and reproducibility which impacts their overall performance. The use of such low-force sensors in static low force measurements related applications such as microhardness testing, tactile sensing, and automation assembly systems may lead to low product trustworthiness. To address these challenges, this study presents the design of a simple-shaped cross-beam low-force transducer specifically for static force measurement in the 5 N range. The study begins with the design of cross beam spring element whose deflection under 5 N is analyzed by analytical and computational means. For the computational analysis, Ansys software of Finite Element Analysis (FEA) is used. For the analytical analysis, an analytical expression is derived to study the deflection. Experimental results demonstrate that the developed cross-beam strain gauge force transducer exhibits good metrological performance in the low-force range.