Modified AC Wheatstone Bridge Network for Accurate

Measurement of Pressure Using Strain Gauge Type

Pressure Sensor

ABSTARCT: In order to achieve high quality of products at lesser cost, accurate measurement
of different process variables is of vital importance in any industry. There are different well-
established techniques of measurement and control instrumentations of these variables. In the
resistive transducer like strain gauge, the small resistance generally changes linearly with a
process variable like pressure but their measurement by usual AC Wheatstone bridge circuit
may suffer from errors due to the effect of stray capacitance between bridge nodal points and
ground and stray inductance on the strain gauge respectively. Though the conventional
Wagner-Earth technique may be used to reduce the error but not suitable for continuous
measurement. In the present paper, a modified operational amplifier-based AC Wheatstone
bridge measurement technique has been proposed in which the effect of stray capacitance and
inductance is minimized. This bridge performance has been studied experimentally with the
strain gauge type pressure transducer. The linear characteristics over a wide range of pressure
with good repeatability, linearity and variable sensitivity have been described.
Keywords: Diaphragm, Strain gauge, AC Wheatstone Bridge, Pressure sensor.

INTRODUCTION:
Pressure is one of the important variables, which is required to be measured and controlled in
any process industry. The pressure is measured by the different types of pressure measuring
transducers such as Thermocouple Gauge, Ionization Gauge, etc. These types of pressure
transducer have longer life period but they comparatively require various environmental and
experimental precaution during the measurement.

1
 About Transducer:
Strain gauge is used as a secondary element for pressure sensing through diaphragm and
supported directly by sensing diaphragm acting as restoring agents. Here a modified
operational amplifier-based quarter AC Wheatstone Bridge measurement technique is
proposed for the measurement in pressure change. Forces which are great enough to induce
greater resistance changes would permanently deform the test specimen and/or the gauge
conductors themselves, thus ruining the gauge as a measurement device. Thus, in order to use
the strain gauge as a practical instrument, small changes in resistance have to be measured with
high accuracy. One of the most common ways of producing such a change is to use a strain
gauge, which changes its resistance with the movement of the diaphragm. The diaphragm is
usually made of a highly carbon steel.

WORKING:
Here two fixed resistances are used as the two arms of the bridge and two strain gauges are
used as the rest two arms as shown in fig. This resistance may change only a fraction of a
percent for the full force range of the gauge, given the limitations imposed by the elastic limits
of the gauge material and of the test specimen the maximum excitation voltage of the strain
gauge in the arm BC of the modified AC Wheatstone Bridge network in depends on the
maximum output voltage (V1) of the op-amp A1.The bridge output may be directly rectified and
filtered to obtain a DC voltage signal to be used by a transmitter, microprocessors based, micro-
controller based or PC based instrumentation system. virtual instrument system for the
measurement of small displacement using modified operational-amplifier-based dc
Wheatstone bridge circuit with strain gauge as sensor has been proposed in which the effect of
nonlinearity error and lead resistance is minimized. In this instrument, sensitivity and linearity
have been improved in the absence of instrumentation amplifier. The output signal has been
found to be linearly related with the displacement. The sensitivity of the bridge network may
be varied by varying the potentiometer Rf as explained in equation which is on the op-amp A2.
The proposed system is easy to implement and convenient for various applications. In the first
phase of the experiment, the bridge performance has been simulated using Lab VIEW and
studied with a known variable resistor, and in the second phase, the same experimentation was
done by replacing the strain gauge for the measurement of displacement. The linear
characteristics over a wide range of displacement with good repeatability, linearity, improved
and variable sensitivity have been described.

2
 Fig 2 Modified Wheatstone bridge

ADVANTAGES:
1) Less cost and accurate measurement.
2) Easy to use and maintenance-free operation.

APPLICATION: Modified Wheatstone bridge has been developed which auto-balances using
a digitally controlled feedback system. Wheatstone bridge along with operational amplifier is
used to measure physical parameters such as temperature, light, strain, the torque applied by a
motor, turbine, or engine to fans, generators, wheels, or propellers. This equipment is found in
power plants, ships, refineries, automobiles and industry at large. Power is obtained by
measuring the strain and rotational speed on a shaft.

REFRENCES:

[1] Sensors & Transducers Journal, Vol. 136, Issue 1, January 2012, pp. 25-34

Modified AC Wheatstone Bridge Network for Accurate Measurement of Pressure Using Strain Gauge
Type Pressure Sensor

Subrata CHATTOPADHYAY, Mahuya BANERJEE and Sagarika PAL

Department of Electrical Engineering, National Institute of Technical Teachers’ Training and

Research, Kolkata [Under MHRD, Govt. of India], Block-FC, Sector-III, Salt Lake City, Kolkata-700
106, India

Authors E-mail: subrata0507@sify.com, moujago@yahoo.com, spal922@yahoo.co.in

SUBMITTED BY- Mukul Rahela (102084004)

Prakhar Pandey (101904182)