"Jim Wilkins" writes:

"Richard Smith" wrote in message ...

I've done calculations, and in view of experience I have, this is the
"bottom line" - the biggest cylinder needed
v
50Tonne cylinder with 50mm stroke.

https://tinyurl.com/ydeq8w9z

The featured item could convert your frame into a tension tester, and
the 50 ton, 2" (50mm) cylinder is shown below. I needed more than a
50mm throw to fold weld test coupons double.

I bought several spare pairs of the quick disconnect couplers from a
local supplier. They can for example allow temporarily adding a
fragile pressure gauge on a tee to the hose. One coupler salvaged a
hydraulic lift table I bought cheap because its motorized pump had
failed.

Pressure gauge which is removable - connect in line, only when needed
- when doing something which does need a measurement - a test or a
tensioning activity.
Has hydraulic couplings and can be there in-line, or can be absent.

Question - would one pump and one cylinder, a 50Tonne 50mm stroke
single-acting, be enough for now? Strategy completed by --- get two
pressure gauges, one to 700+Bar, one to say 100Bar, so can accurately
read off the pressure for both high-force and low-force tests?

Can you think of a solution to a problem of recording the maximum
pressure at which the sample broke?

With the fillet weld test, there is no warning in any form of when the
sample is about to break. Which it does instantaneously with a loud
"BANG". So as you pump you have to do "lines and make a gate" with a
pencil on a paper pad (after four lines, you do a diagonal line, and
the sixth line starts what would become another set of five). So when
the "BANG" happens, you have a persistent tally of what pressure had
been reached. Clumsy and the gauge is more accurate than that
records.