Investigating the use of contact electrical conductance for the measurement of particle impact force

• Using a transducer to measure impact force is often not ideal.
• Using the impacting particle and surface as the transducer may be better.
• Electrical conductance may provide a suitable means.
• It was found that the technique was not suitable – due to low repeatability.

The measurement of impact force by use of a piezoelectric force transducer or similar device is complicated by: (i) the transducer is mechanically resonant, and the output signal is therefore not necessarily a direct measure of the input force, particularly if the contact time is near to the period of resonance; and (ii) the transducer’s mechanical characteristics, such as mass and stiffness, mean that the transducer itself affects the impact characteristics and force profile.This paper describes an attempt to measure impact force profiles without the use of a separate force transducer. However it has been found that the technique is not suitable due to poor repeatability.