For satisfactory production or conversion of continuous material in web form it is generally important to control the tension in the web. The material may be plastics, paper or metal strip; conversion processes include web-fed printing or packaging machines and strip rolling mills. As speeds of production increase it is more likely that relatively high frequency tension perturbations may occur due to interaction between material properties and machine performance characteristics. This could result in frequent breakage of the web or unsatisfactory quality of the product. It is therefore of paramount importance to be able to measure and control tension variations accurately and with an adequate speed of response. The objectives of this investigation are to determine, by direct experiment and analytically, the limitations in static accuracy and dynamic performance of equipment for measurement of web tension.