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To ensure safe lifting for heavy loads and machinery, manufacturing facilities often rely on load measuring devices, such as load cells. Yet verifying the accuracy of a load cell depends on proper load cell calibration, often through certified load measurement calibration services from an accredited professional.
Accurate Load Measurements for Safer Lifts
Accurate load measurements tell staff whether a load is at, over, or under safe handling thresholds. Improperly calibrated, a load measuring device will provide inaccurate measurements and place workers at tremendous risk. It can also cause serious damage to equipment and the surrounding work site or facility.
Basing any lifting or other load positioning work on load cell measurements invokes a huge level of trust in a measuring device's readout. Load cell calibration is thus critical to managing heavy loads confidently and safely.
What Is a Load Cell?
A type of dynamometer, load cells convert load weights into an electrical signal. The readout provides critical insights into whether it's safe to lift or position a load. If incorrect load weights bypass machinery controls, it presents many acute hazards, including but not limited to:
- Caught-between hazards
- Crush injuries
- Struck-by hazards
- Industrial vehicle accidents
- Any number of machine hazards, depending on a load-dependent device's function
The most acute risks come from overloading lifting devices, which is especially hazardous when employees wrongly believe the load is within safe limits. Inaccurate readouts can immediately put employees and materials at risk and create environmental hazards.
Note the accuracy of load measurements can also impact various facility-wide functions. That's because some load measuring devices are capable of relaying load information to:
- Materials handling equipment, such as for weight-dependent automation processes or robotics
- Real-time monitoring software, for continuous load analysis (and a necessary function for load measurement calibration services)
Remote Monitoring Functionality
The ability to monitor load measurement devices remotely is incredibly useful. Often, load cells and other dynamometers must be integrated into equipment presenting electromechanical hazards, which necessitates machine guarding and inhibits close contact with the load measuring device.
Even when remote reading and software analysis isn't strictly necessary, it provides thorough insights into how load weights change when lifted or repositioned, enabling technicians to adjust their load-handling strategies for greater safety.
Technical Thresholds for Load Cell Measurements
For any industry, the exact nature of load testing requires selecting the right load measurement and control devices. Properly applying a load measuring device to its intended application depends on two important specifications:
1. Max Load Capacity
Leading load measuring device manufacturers can create dynamometers for extremely large or nuanced load capacities, but some of the most common capacities include:
- 400 lbs or below
- Up to 10 t
- Up to 20 t
- Up to 250 t
2. Measurement Accuracy
With the right load measuring device, you can expect anywhere from ±0.5% to ±0.1% accuracy.
How Accurate Load Detection Improves Industrial Safety
Handling heavy loads, whether manually or aided by machinery, immediately raises the stakes on industrial safety. A reliable load measuring device with accurate load cell calibration is extremely useful or even necessary for numerous manufacturing, construction, marine terminal, and other industrial operations:
- Maintaining uniform load thresholds in factory settings
- Lifting and lowering inventory stored on mezzanines
- Safe loading and unloading of cargo
- Transferring construction materials to and from elevated surfaces
- Coordinating handling equipment (such as industrial load turners)
- Shore-based materials handling
- Unit proof load testing for cranes
- Monitoring tension for elevator car or suspension platforms
These functions have intrinsic safety benefits, and proper load measurement calibration services are sometimes necessary to fulfill regulatory requirements across numerous industries.
Safer Load Measuring Device Operation
Specific load measurement calibration services are often required for regular heavy-duty lifting and hoisting operations – to cite just several common examples:
- For shore-based material handling, OSHA's "Unit proof test[...] of cranes" standards (1919.71[c]) require testing at 10% in excess of manufacturer load ratings at maximum and minimum radii, and in the boom's least stable direction (subsection [b])
- The same regulation requires testing at 25% in excess of load ratings for trolley-equipped cranes
- Shore-based crane tests are required before the first use and once every 4 years (subsection [a][1])
- Marine terminal cranes require load measuring devices meeting a wide range of load testing and related performance standards outlined in 1917.46(a)(1).
- Dynamometers used for vessel cargo require accredited load measurement calibration services every 6 months, per 1919.10(d)
- Escalator and elevator work involves strict load capacities, which may require continual load measurements (1917.116[g])
Backing Load Tests With Proper Reporting
When required, load tests must almost always be traceable to the National Bureau of Standards. Accreditation applications must also be accompanied by a proper test report and certificate (see, for example, 1919.60[c]).
The certifying/testing organization must themselves hold a certificate from the National Bureau of Standards, verifying the equipment used for load measurement calibration services is itself accurate. In some cases, accredited persons performing load tests may need to provide advanced notice of testing schedules and circumstances to the nearest District Office of the Administrator. See, for example, 1919.10(c) for vessel cargo gear.
When relevant, accreditation procedures are governed by numerous regulatory standards throughout section 1919 subpart B ("gear certification"), encompassing any number of sections 1919.3–1919.90.
Thorough Analysis: A Matter of Safety and Compliance
We've only described several of the almost innumerable technical and safety standards for load cell calibration. It's vital to order the correct load calibration and testing services based on your own research into the exact OSHA and/or CCOHS regulations affecting your industry.
Yet it's still advisable to secure assistance from an experienced industry leader. Determining the veracity of load cell calibration can dramatically improve worker and facility safety. Doing so requires the help of a committed load safety and compliance expert, skilled in both dynamometer manufacturing and calibration services.
Load Cell Calibration and Testing Services from Tractel
Throughout OSHA's extensive load test regulations, official standards often require testing in conformity with OEM standards. As a world leader in advanced load measuring equipment – along with numerous lifting devices, hoists, and powered platforms – Tractel specializes in granular load cell calibration and testing services.
To improve the safety of even the heaviest load handling functions and maintain the accuracy of your load measuring device, fill out our contact form by clicking on the below button.