Another one of our ‘X-BHD’, bridge-type, Brinell hardness testers left the workshop last week

This machine, one of a long and distinguished line of large Foundrax Brinell testers (they can be found all around the Globe) enables the in-situ testing of sizeable steel components and its new owner will enjoy a dramatic improvement in test times and very significant cost savings.

Brinell hardness tester components

Foundrax’s bridge machines feature the automatic indentation measurement system that was pioneered in the early 1980s. Foundrax was the first hardness tester manufacturer to offer an automated system and it has proved its worth on some exceptionally demanding production lines. In one case it was integral to a machine that performed over 30 million tests before being retired (as a precaution – it was still working). The system – the ‘BRINtronic’ – makes multiple diameter measurements in a fraction of a second and its accuracy is still vastly higher than that demanded by the international Standards. Other manufacturers have laid claim to inventing automated indentation measurement but Foundrax got there first – by a huge margin – and development of the system continues to this day.

Trade mark certificate for the original automatic Brinell measurement system

The system was incorporated into a new, heavy-duty production hardness tester and the machine was launched as the ‘BRINscan’.

Here’s the original model, 1983

The latest version of the BRINscan (the Mark V) is now in service

Our BRINscan machines have made the Brinell hardness test a much more reliable method than had been thought possible for the first eighty years of its deployment and have prevented catastrophic component failures.

Alex Austin

Alex is a member of the ISE/101/05 Indentation Hardness Testing Committee at the British Standards Institution. He has been part of the delegation to the International Standards Organisation advising on the development of the standard ISO 6506 Metallic materials - Brinell hardness test and is the chairman and convenor for the current ISO revision of the standard.

Alex’s industrial pedigree can be traced back to 18th Century Bohemia, where his forebears ran a foundry supplies business and in his work at the British Standards Institution he has used his extensive knowledge of Brinell testing in the UK’s steel, oil and gas industries to ensure that the interests of the end user are appropriately represented.
Alex has been Managing Director of Foundrax Engineering Products since 2001. A skilled negotiator and commercial manager, Alex leads a team of engineers and technicians with skills ranging all the way from traditional toolmaking to embedded software systems, and he is currently engaged in bringing the next generation of Brinell hardness testers into production (the first of these was launched in 2021). He recently expanded the production team and purchased a new factory space to cope with increasing orders, particularly for Foundrax’s custom-designed, custom-built, bridge-type hardness testing machines.