Basics of calibration

What You Should Know About Calibration

With the introduction of quality management standards all over the world, the requirements for measuring and test devices have become significantly more demanding. For example, the certification according to DIN EN ISO 9000+ requires an active quality management involving regular calibrations. With consideration of the specific environment this ensures a high reliability regarding the measuring results and the traceability of the measured values to the national standard.

´Calibration´ is Not Identical with ´Calibration by the Bureau of Standards´

´Calibration´ includes those activities involved with determining, under given conditions, the relationship between the output values of an instrument or a measuring equipment and the corresponding values of a variable, which are determined by reference materials.

The Result of a Calibration

  • The result of a calibration allows the evaluation of errors of dimension of the measuring instrument, measuring equipment or the setup of measuring instruments or the allocation of values to any scaled graduation marks.
  • The result of a calibration can be fixed in a document, which is often called a ´calibration report´ or a ´calibration certificate´.
  • In many cases, the result of a calibration is specified as correction or ´calibration factor´ or as ´calibration curve

Calibration by the Bureau of Standards

The expression ´Calibration by the Bureau of Standards´ is limited to the legal metrology and denotes governmental verifications, according to the calibration regulations. This type of calibration must only be performed by the Bureau of Standards responsible for the devices that are appropriate for verification.

Calibration by the Bureau of Standards

The expression ´Calibration by the Bureau of Standards´ is limited to the legal metrology and denotes governmental verifications, according to the calibration regulations. This type of calibration must only be performed by the Bureau of Standards responsible for the devices that are appropriate for verification.

DAkkS Calibration

The calibration must only be performed within the range of those measurable variables, measuring ranges and measuring incertainties, which are specified in the accreditation document. The customer receives a DAkkS Calibration certificate specifying the measured values, the corresponding measuring incertainty, the designation of the calibration method, the environmental conditions and, as required, information on special measurement conditions.
The calibrated object will be identified by a label (red).
The label contains the following data:

  • Number of calibration
  • Number of the calibration laboratory
  • Date of calibration (month/year) and refers to the calibration certificate.

DAkkS calibration meets all the requirements regarding test resources laid down in DIN EN ISO/IEC 17025 (inter alia for the monitoring of production processes and the quality assurance applied to products).

Calibrations outside the range of accreditation services provided by the calibration laboratory at Ahlborn Mess- und Regelungstechnik GmbH are performed by accredited laboratories run by our various partners.

Factory Calibration

The calibration is performed according to comparison measurements with factory standards. Factory standards are (as far as possible) PTB or DAkkS calibrated measuring instruments, sensors or measuring systems. The customer receives a factory calibration certificate specifying the measured values, the corresponding measuring incertainty, the designation of the calibration method, the environmental conditions and, as required, information on special measurement conditions.
The calibrated object will be identified by a label.

Calibrations outside the range of accreditation services provided by the calibration laboratory at Ahlborn Mess- und Regelungstechnik GmbH are performed by laboratories run by our various partners.
For factory calibrations, the factory calibration certificate is not an accredited certificate and does not guarantee mutual recognition as traceability according to EA MLA (European Accreditation Multilateral Agreement).

How Often To Calibrate?

The time interval between calibrations highly depends on the specific application and is influenced by the following parameters:

  • Permissible measuring tolerances
  • Results of previous calibrations
  • Environmental conditions
  • Customer-specific requirements and definitions
  • Application frequency