Brüel & Kjær
Encyclopedia
Brüel & Kjær is a subsidiary of UK-based Spectris
plc. Brüel & Kjær is a manufacturer and supplier of sound and vibration measurement apparatus.
The company headquarters is based in Nærum
, Denmark
. Brüel & Kjær has sales offices in 55 countries and more than 1.150 employees working within sales, service and support, worldwide.
The Managing Director is Lars Rønn (from September 1, 2008).
The two men met while studying at the The Polytechnic School in Copenhagen (now The Technical University of Denmark
). After receiving their M.S. degrees in 1939 they decided to start a company developing instruments for acoustic measurements. Holger Nielsen joined the company as third partner in 1945, and was with the company until his death in 1978.
After the division of the company, a number of former employees formed G.R.A.S. Sound and Vibration.
AGIV formed the Spectris Division, which included Brüel & Kjær, Hottinger Baldwin Messtechnik GmbH (HBM), and BTG Instruments GmbH. In July 2000, the Spectris Division was sold to Fairey Group Ltd. (a British Company), and in May 2001, Fairey Group changed its name to Spectris Plc.
Brüel & Kjær acquired LDS Test & Measurement in January 2009. In February, 2009, Brüel & Kjær acquired Lochard Ltd.
Spectris
Spectris plc is a leading supplier of precision instrumentation and controls. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index.-History:...
plc. Brüel & Kjær is a manufacturer and supplier of sound and vibration measurement apparatus.
The company headquarters is based in Nærum
Nærum
Nærum is a suburb of Copenhagen. 16km North of the city center. 5230 people live in Nærum, most of whom live either in low-rise concrete blocks or single-family houses. Nærum is situated on Nærumbanen, a single track train line which connects the suburb with central Lyngby and Jægersborg station....
, Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
. Brüel & Kjær has sales offices in 55 countries and more than 1.150 employees working within sales, service and support, worldwide.
The Managing Director is Lars Rønn (from September 1, 2008).
Founders
Brüel & Kjær was founded by Per Vilhelm Brüel (b. March 15, 1915) and Viggo Kjær (b. June 5, 1914) on November 28, 1942.The two men met while studying at the The Polytechnic School in Copenhagen (now The Technical University of Denmark
Technical University of Denmark
The Technical University of Denmark , often simply referred to as DTU, is a university just north of Copenhagen, Denmark. It was founded in 1829 at the initiative of Hans Christian Ørsted as Denmark's first polytechnic, and is today ranked among Europe's leading engineering institutions, and the...
). After receiving their M.S. degrees in 1939 they decided to start a company developing instruments for acoustic measurements. Holger Nielsen joined the company as third partner in 1945, and was with the company until his death in 1978.
Products
The successive addition of products to the company's line is as follows:- 1940s – Precision measurement instruments including radio frequency analysers and Geiger counters.The first Brüel & Kjær instrument produced was Type 2401, a vacuum tube voltmeter. The success of the company started with Type 2301 in 1949. Since then it has been updated a number of times. The latest version, Type 2307, was introduced in 1972. In 1943 Brüel & Kjær launched Type 4301 - the world's first Charge Accelerometer, thus entering the field of vibration measurement.
- 1950s – Sound and vibration measurements, including development of logarithmic level recorders, signal generators and frequency analyzers.
- 1960s – Measurement microphones, preamplifiers and calibrators, along with IEC standardised precision sound level meters.
- 1970s – Parallel analyzers, including the world’s first analyzer to use digital filters.
- 1980s – The first commercially available instrument for sound intensity measurement, and expansions of the range of instruments; for example, dual channel FFT analyzers.
- 1990s – Multichannel and multi-analysis systems, including acoustical holography array systems.
- 2000s – Surface microphones and new technologies such as TEDS, Dyn-X, REq-X, LAN-XI.
Organisational developments
In 1992 Brüel & Kjær was sold to AGIV (a German holding company), and split into a number of separate companies:- Brüel & Kjær Sound and Vibration Measurement A/S (the core sound and vibration market)
- Brüel & Kjær Vibro (machinery condition monitoring)
- B-K Medical (ultrasonic medical diagnostic instruments)
- Innova Air Tech Instruments A/S (gas analysis instrumentation)
- Danish Pro Audio (studio microphones)
After the division of the company, a number of former employees formed G.R.A.S. Sound and Vibration.
AGIV formed the Spectris Division, which included Brüel & Kjær, Hottinger Baldwin Messtechnik GmbH (HBM), and BTG Instruments GmbH. In July 2000, the Spectris Division was sold to Fairey Group Ltd. (a British Company), and in May 2001, Fairey Group changed its name to Spectris Plc.
Brüel & Kjær acquired LDS Test & Measurement in January 2009. In February, 2009, Brüel & Kjær acquired Lochard Ltd.