UNIT- II

Measurement Systems

Prof. BAWAGE A.S.

M.tech (Control System)
VDF Engg. College Latur.
Contents
• Static Characteristics
• Dynamic Characteristics
• Temperature Measurement
• Pressure and Force Measurement
• Displacement Measurement
• Speed Measurement
• Level Measurement
• Measurement of pH
• Calibration
 Introduction
• Specifications of an instrument are provided by different
manufacturers in different wrap and quoting different terms,
which sometimes may cause confusion.
• Moreover, there are several application specific issues. Still,
broadly speaking, these specifications can be classified into
three categories:
• (i) static characteristics,
• (b) dynamic characteristics
• (iii) random characteristics.
 Static Characteristics
• Range (or span) :
• It defines the maximum and minimum values of the inputs or
the outputs for which the instrument is recommended to use.
• For example, for a temperature measuring instrument the
input range may be 100-500 oC and the output range may be
4-20 mA.
• Sensitivity :
• It can be defined as the ratio of the incremental output and
the incremental input.
• the sensitivity of a thermocouple is denoted as 100/VCμ, it
indicates the sensitivity in the linear range of the
thermocouple voltage vs. temperature characteristics.
•
• Linearity:
• The linearity is defined as the maximum deviation from the
linear characteristics as a percentage of the full scale output.
•

• Hysteresis :
• Resolution :
• resolution is also defined in terms of percentage as:

• Accuracy :
• Accuracy indicates the closeness of the measured value with
the actual or true value.
• It is expressed in the form of the maximum error (= measured
value – true value) as a percentage of full scale reading.
• E.g. the error will also be ±2.5 oC, i.e. ±1% of the reading.

• Precision :
• Precision indicates the repeatability or reproducibility of an
instrument (but does not indicate accuracy).
Dynamic Characteristics
• Dynamic characteristics refer to the performance of the
instrument when the input variable is changing rapidly with
time.
• Frequency Response Performance :
• The frequency response performance refers to the performance
of the system subject to sinusoidal input of varying frequency.
 • Step response performance :
• The normalized step response of a measurement system
normally encountered is shown in Two important parameters for
classifying the dynamic response are:

• Rise time (tr): It is the time

required for the response to rise
from 10% to 90% of its final
value.
• Peak Overshoot (Mp): It is the
maximum value minus the
steady state value, normally
expressed in terms of
percentage.
• Settling Time (ts): It is the time
taken to attain the response
within ±2% of the steady state
value.
 Random Characteristics
• If repeated readings of the same quantity of the measurand are
taken by the same instrument, under same ambient conditions,
they are bound to differ from each other.
• This is often due to some inherent sources of errors of the
instrument that vary randomly and at any point of time it is very
difficult to exactly say, what would be its value.
• For example, the characteristics of resistance and diode elements
of an electronic circuit are random, due to two sources of noises:
thermal noise and flicker noise. To characterize these behaviors,
statistical terminologies are often used.
 Temperature Measurement
• The purpose of early thermometers was to measure the
variation of atmospheric or body temperatures. With the
advancement of science and technology, now we require
temperature measurement over a wide range and different
atmospheric conditions, and that too with high accuracy and
precision.
• They can be broadly classified in the following groups:

• Resistance thermometers (RTD and Thermistors)

• Thermocouple  
• Liquid and gas thermometer
• Bimetallic strip
 Resistance Temperature Detector
• Resistance thermometers employing metallic conductors for
temperature measurement are called Resistance
Temperature Detector (RTD).
• RTDs are more rugged and have more or less linear
characteristics over a wide temperature range.
• For industrial use, bare metal wires cannot be used for
temperature measurement.
• They must be protected from mechanical hazards such as
material decomposition, tearing and other physical damages.
 Construction and working of RTD
• The resistance wire is often put in a
stainless steel well for protection
against mechanical hazards.
• This is also useful from the point of
view of maintenance, since a defective
sensor can be replaced by a good one
while the plant is in operation.
• Heat conducting but electrical
insulating materials like mica is placed
in between the well and the resistance
material.
• The resistance wire should be carefully
wound over mica sheet so that no
strain is developed due to length
expansion of the wire.
 Thermocouple
• When two conductors made from dissimilar metals are
connected forming two common junctions and the two
junctions are exposed to two different temperatures, a net
thermal emf is produced,
• the actual value being dependent on the materials used and
the temperature difference between hot and cold junctions.
 Thermocouple
• The thermoelectric emf generated, in fact is due to the
combination of two effects: Peltier effect and Thomson
effect.
• A typical thermocouple junction is shown in fig. The emf
generated can be approximately expressed by the
relationship:

Where,
• T1 and T2 are hot and cold junction temperatures in K.
• C1 and C2 are constants depending upon the materials.
• For Copper/ Constantan thermocouple,
• C1=62.1 and C2=0.045