Gauge is a standard measurement unit that is used to determine the thickness or diameter of wires and metal sheets.
For measuring the diameter or thickness of wires American Wire Gauge (AWG) and Standard Wire Gauge (SWG) systems are mostly used SWG also so used to measure the thickness of metal sheets and Sheet Metal Gauge (SMG) system is specifically used for measuring the thickness of metal sheets.
AWG also known as B&S wire gauge system was introduced in America on 1857 to measure the size of wires. AWG measuring system allocates the gauges number starting from 0000 to 40 for different diameter of wires. Theses number are inversely allocated, smallest size of wire allocated 40 gauge number and largest size of wire has allocated 0000 gauge number. AWG system is mostly using in American region.
SWG, originally developed in the UK, is a gauge system mainly used for measuring wire diameter and thickness. The SWG system allocates gauge numbers from 7/0 to 50, where smaller wires have higher gauge numbers and larger wires have lower gauge numbers. It’s commonly used in Europe.
SMG is specifically used to measure the thickness of metal sheets. The system works similarly to other gauge systems, where higher gauge numbers represent thinner sheets and lower numbers represent thicker sheets. SMG is used worldwide.
