How to Make Large Graduated Cylinders

Polyfab manufactures custom graduated cylinders for unique industrial and medical applications. The first step in our process is to understand the goals of the customer and the materials to be measured. The plastic selected for Large Graduated Cylinders must resist chemical attack from the product. A convenient compatibility table is available at http://www.coleparmer.com/techinfo/chemcomp.asp
Our most common Large Graduated Cylinders products are clear PVC graduated cylinders, polycarbonate graduated cylinders, acrylic graduated cylinders, and PETG graduated cylinders. We can use any material that is transparent enough to see the top of the liquid and that is formable and weldable.

Where possible, we purchase a clear tube or pipe of the selected material. If the volume required is too large, we roll a cylinder from sheet material. Then we determine the fittings required on the bottom, the top and the sides of the graduated cylinder.
The graduations are available in any units of volume measure. Our limitation is that the graduation marks be separated enough to be distinguishable, and be wide enough to be clearly visible. The larger the diameter of the graduated cylinder, the larger the volume between graduations.

For graduated cylinders with a diameter of about 8 inches or less, we engrave the graduations directly on the body of the cylinder. For larger cylinders, we form a narrow strip of the same material, engrave the graduation marks on it, and weld it to the large cylinder.

We calculate the space between graduations by using a reference graduated cylinder guaranteed to meet accuracy requirements of ASTM Class B, E1272, "Cylinder, Graduated, Laboratory, Glass" and all requirements of ISO Standard 6706 "Plastic Laboratory Ware-Graduated Measuring Cylinders." We locate zero to meet specific customer needs. Examples of Large Graduated Cylinders are locating zero at the top to measure directly the amount of liquid removed and adding a customer-supplied valve at the bottom to compensate for the volume of all the connections.

Large Graduated Cylinders

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