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Metrology

Beamex / Dictionary / Metrology

Calibration curve

A calibration curve is a graphical il­lus­tra­tion that represents the re­la­tion­ship between a known, accurate input and the measured output of an instrument, thereby visually depicting calibration results. Calibration curves are typically constructed by measuring a known value of a process variable, then plotting the measured value against the true value. The resultant curve can

Hysteresis

Hysteresis is a common phenomenon in calibration, which occurs when the output of a measuring instrument or system depends not only on the current input value, but also on its past history. This means that the output value can be different depending on whether the input value is increasing or decreasing, and can exhibit a

VIM

An acronym commonly used to identify the ISO In­ter­na­tion­al Vocabulary of Basic and General Terms in Metrology.

Ver­i­fi­ca­tion

Con­fir­ma­tion by examination and provision of objective evidence that specified re­quire­ments have been fulfilled.

Precision

Precision is a property of a measuring system or instrument. Precision is a measure of the re­peata­bil­i­ty of a measuring system – how much agreement there is within a group of repeated mea­sure­ments of the same quantity under the same conditions.

Transfer standard

A transfer standard is a measurement standard used as an in­ter­me­di­ate device when comparing two other standards.

Traceable, trace­abil­i­ty

Trace­abil­i­ty is a property of the result of a measurement, providing the ability to relate the measurement result to stated references, through an unbroken chain of comparisons each having stated un­cer­tain­ties.

Standard reference material

A standard reference material (SRM) as defined by NIST “is a material or artifact that has had one or more of its property values certified by a technically valid procedure, and is accompanied by, or traceable to, a certificate or other doc­u­men­ta­tion which is issued by NIST

Spec­i­fi­ca­tion

In metrology, a spec­i­fi­ca­tion is a documented statement of the expected performance ca­pa­bil­i­ties of a large group of sub­stan­tial­ly identical measuring instruments, given in terms of the relevant parameters and including the accuracy or uncertainty

Proficiency testing

De­ter­mi­na­tion of laboratory testing performance by means of in­ter­lab­o­ra­to­ry comparisons.