Throughout a fabric’s life, it is subjected to a variety of circumstances through regular use and wear. A common experience that often occurs is the accidental contact with a sharp edge or object, thus, the determination of a textile’s tearing strength, or the force required to propagate a tear, is an important measure for evaluating quality.

To better serve the textile industry’s need for a high quality, reliable instrument to evaluate tearing resistance, SDL Atlas introduces the PowerTear High-Energy Elmendorf Tearing Tester. The PowerTear incorporates a microprocessor controlled falling pendulum with digital display to determine the ballistic tearing strength by propagating a single rip tear in a testing sample. The versatility of the PowerTear allows for a wide range of capability for testing both fine and heavy weight specimens.

The SDL Atlas PowerTear has the maximum capacity of 12800cN while still employing a single pendulum. The higher capacity add-on weights have been split into separate pieces which simplifies changing the tester capacity. A larger and heavier steel base plate is integrated into the tester to ensure the test accuracy is not affected by the pendulum’s swing. An electrical clutch is employed to stop the pendulum immediately after a test serving to increase the test efficiency and the safety of the operator while avoiding any direct contact with the pendulum.

The testing accuracy of the PowerTear is further enhanced by the use of an angular encoder and a specially designed pendulum. The angular encoder is capable of measuring the swing angles of the pendulum before and after the test accurately, enabling a more direct determination of the tearing resistance with greater accuracy. A key to conducting a test correctly is the precise determination of the center of gravity of the pendulum. While the center of gravity comes preset on the PowerTear, events can occur during the normal operation of any Elmendorf that can alter this setting. The PowerTear makes it easy to check this balance and allows the user to make adjustments if necessary. This is achieved in the PowerTear pendulum by a new design that feat features two individual precision adjusters (vertical and horizontal ) to realize this vital requirement. As a result, the accuracy can be guaranteed.

The new design is rounded out with a software upgrade. Completely new software was developed for the PowerTear that is compatible to all Windows operating systems. Users now have a wide range of functionality including the ability to input batch information, remarks, specimen descriptions, and include or exclude particular test results. Customizable reports allow the user to select the desired result calculations which then be can generated and saved as an Microsoft Excel file.

The SDL Atlas Group of companies offers the largest range of textile testing equipment, supplies, consumables, and services available from a single source. With its own offices in the United States, Hong Kong and China, plus agents in over 100 countries, SDL Atlas is ready to support its customers anywhere in the world. The goal of SDL Atlas is to provide customers with the most complete solution at the best value.

For more information, visit www.sdlatlas.com or contact an SDL Atlas solutions expert: 
- (US) T: +1 803 329 2110; E: [email protected] 
- (Hong Kong) T: +852 3443 4888; E: [email protected] 
- (China) T: +86 755 2671 1168; E: [email protected]