DAS – Module 2.

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Accelerometers, Pressure Sensors
Presented By,
Prasanth Krishnan
Objectives

Understand the basic types and applications of

 Accelerometers
 Pressure Sensors

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1. Accelerometers

 Acceleration  Rate of change of speed (or velocity)

 Both magnitude and direction
 Accelerometer  Measures acceleration
 Measurement is done in terms of ‘g’ ( g= 9.81m/s2)
 Typically consists of a mechanical sensing element and a conversion mechanism
 3 types
 Potentiometric Accelerometer
 LVDT Accelerometer
 Piezoelectric Accelerometer
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1.1 Potentiometric Accelerometer

 O/P can be measured by change in

resistance or change in voltage
 Disadvantages
 Limited resolution
 <100 Hz applications only
 Wiper can give contact errors

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1.2 LVDT Accelerometer

 Core acts as mass

 Spring steel (reed) acts as spring
 Basic principle
 Same as LVDT
 As vibration (or acceleration)
increases, amplitude of o/p sgl.
Increases
 Advantages
 Contactless
 Much smaller mass  can measure
higher frequencies than
potentiometric accelerometer
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1.3 Piezoelectric Accelerometer

 Basic principle
 When force is applied to a piezoelectric
crystal, a charge is generated
 Here force is generated due to acceleration
 F= ma
 So charge, Q= dF
 Where, d charge coefficient
 Suppose the crystal has a capacitance C
 ThenQ = CV

V = Q/C
= dF/C
= dma/C
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1.3 Piezoelectric Accelerometer
(Contd.)
 Advantages
 Small size
 Natural frequency is very high, so
can measure upto 500g
 g = 9.81 m/s2

 Disadvantages
 Cannot be used for low frequency
applications (i.e. less than 10 Hz)
 O/P impedance is very high, so
loading may occur

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2. Pressure Sensors

 3 types of pressures
 Absolute pr.  wrt vacuum
 Gauge Pr.  wrt ambient atmosphere
 Differential Pressure  wrt another pressure

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2. Pressure Sensors

 LVDT pressure transducer

 Capacitance Pressure transducer
 Bourdon Gauge
 Strain gauge pressure transducer

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2. Pressure Sensors (Contd.)

LVDT Pr. Transducer (with LVDT Pr. Transducer (with

bellows) bourdon gauge)

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2. Pressure Sensors (Contd.)

Capacitive Pr. transducer

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2. Pressure Sensors (Contd.)

Strain gauge Pr. transducer Bourdon gauge

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3. Temperature Sensors

 RTD
 Thermocouple
 Thermistor

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3. Temperature Sensors (Contd.)

3.1 RTD

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3. Temperature Sensors (Contd.)

RTD Connections

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