Hardness prediction.

HPS hardness prediction software is said to significantly reduce the test time for the company's IRHD Micro and Dead Load Hardness Testers (H12 and H14). Although IRHD (international rubber hardness degrees) have been adopted internationally for many years, its test cycle is long in comparison with the other major scale, durometer A. With IRHD, the standard specifies that the instrument apply a two-stage load to the sensing indentor, a small primary load for five seconds to find a datum, followed by a larger secondary load for 30 seconds. The distance moved by the indentor from the datum is automatically converted to the IRHD value, which is displayed digitally on the H12 and H14 at the end of the test. The company's technique is said to reduce the test duration so that the primary and secondary load times can be reduced to as little as one and six seconds, respectively, while accurately predicting the standard 36 second result. The company, which is said to have verified the HPS software on a very wide range of rubber types, is confident that laboratories will achieve considerable efficiency improvement when the software is used. (Wallace Instruments)

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