This paper presents the design process and characteristic test results of tension sensors for measuring the ultimate tension forces of surgical wires. Three types of sensor were designed and tested for calibration. The first two types which transfer the wire tension to the sensing element by direct contact have too much hysterisis errors due to the firctional effect. This error can be considerably reduced in the modified structure, where a cover and a loading button is used to transfer force and moment to the sensing element. The strains predicted by theoretical equations agree well with those by finite element calculations neglecting friction and the strains by finite element analysis considering friction are in good agreement with those measured by four strain gages. The modified ring type tension sensor developed in this paper is expected to be useful for measuring the tension of surgical wires with nonlinearity of 1.31%FS, hysterisis of 5.74%FS and repeatability of 0.19%FS.