US Patent 7313971 Material Testing Machine

A material testing machine includes a load mechanism for applying a load to a test piece, and a plurality of detectors for detecting physical values associated with the applied load. An A/D converter receives the output measurement data of each of the detected physical values, and digitalizes the received output data. The A/D converter has multiple channels, and can select use/nonuse of each of the multiple channels based on an external selection signal. Since the detecting rate and/or the detecting accuracy are inversely proportional to the number of multiple channels in use at one time, the machine enables a user to prioritize between the number of channels in use, the detecting rate, and the detecting accuracy.