In mechanical engineering, aerospace industry, energy industry, building industry, safety engineering and testing, forces with nominal values in excess of 15 MN are measured. The application of force measuring devices can be totally different from their calibration. The main reasons for this are different mounting conditions, different force introduction components, different loading profiles and different time influences. Traceable calibration of suitable transfer standards should improve the measurement of forces in industrial applications. In order to reduce the uncertainty of measurement in practical applications, parasitic components and effects that are related to real loading procedures (which might be very different from the static calibration procedures) have to be taken into account. Furthermore, the force range needs to be extended to larger nominal values because there is an increasing demand for traceable calibrations in the MN range for forces up to 30 MN in European industry, in future maybe even up to 50 MN. Therefore, newly developed highest nominal value force transfer standards have to be investigated in order to improve the measurement of forces and the dissemination of the quantity of force. In addition parasitic components and different loading effects will be analyzed to consider these effects when the device is used in industrial applications.
In the highest force range, build-up systems are used, however, open questions exist regarding uncertainty evaluation of such systems. It is therefore necessary to provide end users with procedures on using this kind of force measurement device in this highest force range and to develop corresponding methods of uncertainty calculation.