An Interview with Kevin Copleston, one of the founders of Sensor Solutions Ltd
Sensor Solutions: ‘So tell me about cryogenic load cells, is just the bonding problems that you have?’
No with cryogenic, there’s a couple of things, down at cryogenic temperatures you get a difference between one gauge and another gauge. You get huge temperature sensitivity, so we use another type of foil using karma alloy which is flatter, at the extreme it doesn’t see the changes other gauges do.
The other issue with cryogenic temperatures is you have problems with solder. Solder suffers from what’s called tin disease, and they put antimony into solder to stop it.
However main problem with cryogenic is that everything becomes brittle and it doesn’t work very well, the modulus rises so it becomes stiffer. Small temp changes will cause very big variables because the modulus is up, the sensitivity is down, because it’s stiffer it doesn’t flex so much for a given load.
They are your problems, so cryogenic work is very special.
Information about: High Temperature Load Cells | Strain Gauge Design and Manufacture