Mechanistic harmonization of British pendulum test measurements

The current calibration limits of British pendulum tester (BPT) specified by ASTM and BS EN standards could result in large discrepancies in measurements made by different BPT. Tighter calibration limits may not work as they might be difficult to achieve in practice. To overcome this problem, a mechanistic harmonization procedure is proposed in this research. First, a mechanistic model of BPT was created, followed by the development of a finite element simulation of the BPT test process. The proposed procedure is able to convert BPT measurements by different BPT units to either (i) friction coefficient values of the measured surfaces, or (ii) equivalent BPN values of a virtual reference BPT device. Either of these two methods allows all BPN measurements made by different BPT units to be compared directly on a common basis.