On 26 Jul 2003 13:20:13 -0700, (Glenn Cramond) wrote:
The Hounsfield Tensometer works on a lever system that compresses a
leather bag containing mercury. As tension is increased, the mercury
is pushed up a glass tube, the length of the column indicating tension
on an adjacent scale. I would like to get rid of the mercury. Any
ideas on a method of conversion to alternate reading method please.

If you replace the leather bag with a rubber bladder, and replace the
glass column with one much taller (30 inches of mercury is equal to
32 feet of water), you could then substitute colored water for the mercury.
That's physically unwieldy, but it is cheap and simple (at least it is simple
if you don't need so much accuracy that temperature compensation
becomes an issue).

Alternatively, you could replace the bag with a strain gauge load cell,
and the column with an electrical readout. That's a bit spendy, but it
would be neat and compact.

A more mechanical approach would be to use a spring and dial indicator
in place of the bladder and column.

Gary