ENG 023

Metrology and Calibration

Topic 1
Basic Concepts

2016

Sayfa 1
Dimension
 All physical and engineering quantizes can be described
by a combination of basic quantities such as
Length, Time, Mass, etc.

 These primary dimensions can be written as

[L], [T], [M], etc.

e.g: the speed has the dimension:

length [ L]
speed    [ LT 1 ]
time [T ]
e.g: the mass density has the dimension:
mass [M ] 3
density   3
 [ ML ]
volume [ L]

Sayfa 2
System of Units
 Each primary dimension has a unit.

 There are several systems of units in use today.

1. International System (SI) or MKS units

2. CGS units ( Force (dyne), Heat Energy (calorie), work,
energy (erg), electric charge (franklin), magnetic flux density
(gauss)
See also https://www.unc.edu/~rowlett/units/cgsmks.html

3. British-American System of Units Gravitational

e.g: Length can be measured in
meters, centimeters, yards, inches, etc.

Sayfa 3
SI Base Units
 The International System of Units (SI) defines seven
units of measure as a basic set.

Meter the fundamental unit of length

Kilogram the fundamental unit of for mass
Second the fundamental unit of time
Ampere the fundamental unit of electric current
Kelvin the fundamental unit of temperature
Mole the fundamental unit of amount of
substance
Candela the fundamental unit of luminous intensity
A candle has luminous intensity of approx. 1 candela

Sayfa 4
Name Symbol Definition
The length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a
Meter m
time interval of 1/299 792 458 of a second.
Kilogram kg The mass of the international prototype of the kilogram

The duration of 9 192 631 770 periods of the radiation

Second s corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine
levels of the ground state of the cesium 133 atom.
The constant electric current which, if maintained in two
straight parallel conductors of infinite length, of negligible
Ampere A circular cross-section, and placed 1 metre apart in vacuum,
would produce between these conductors a force equal to
2 x 10−7 newton per metre of length.
The fraction 1/273.16 of the thermodynamic temperature of
Kelvin K the triple point of water.

The amount of substance of a system which contains as

Mole mol many elementary entities as there are atoms in 0.012
kilogram of carbon 12 atom.
The luminous intensity in a given direction, of a light source
that emits monochromatic radiation of frequency 540 x 1012
Candela cd
Hz and that has a radiant intensity in that direction of 1/683
watt per steradian.
Sayfa 5
 Mass
The kilogram is the unit of mass in SI;
it is equal to the mass of the international
prototype of the kilogram, IPK.

IPK
 was accepted in 1889
 made of a platinum alloy
(90% platinum and 10% iridium)

See also:
http://www.bipm.org/en/scientific/mass/prototype.html

Sayfa 6
Derived SI Units
 Relying on the base units, all other units of measurement
can be formed.
 For example,
 the SI derived unit of area is square metre (m2)
 density is kilograms per cubic metre (kg/m3)

Some named derived units:

Quantity Symbol Dimen. SI Deriv.SI__

Force F [MLT-2] kg.m/s2 Newton, N
Energy E [ML2T-2] kg.m2/s2 Joule,
J
Pressure P [ML-1T-2] kg/m.s2 Pascal,
Pa

Sayfa 7
Sayfa 8
 Scaling Prefixes of SI Units
Multiplication Factor Prefix SI sysmbol
1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 = 1024 yotta Y
1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 = 1021 zetta Z Examples:
1,000,000,000,000,000,000 = 1018 exa E
1,000,000,000,000,000 = 1015 peta P 1 GHz = 109 Hz
1,000,000,000,000 = 1012 tera T
1 MW = 106 W
1,000,000,000 = 109 giga G
1,000,000 = 106 mega M 1 kPa = 103 Pa
1000 = 103 kilo k
100 = 102 hecto h 1 mm = 10−3 m
10 = 101 deka da
0.1 = 10-1 deci d
1 µF = 10−6 F
0.01 = 10-2 centi c
0.001 = 10-3 milli m
0.000,001 = 10-6 micro µ
0.000,000,001 = 10-9 nano n
0.000,000,000,001 = 10-12 pico p
0.000,000,000,000,001 = 10-15 femto f
0.000,000,000,000,000,001 = 10-18 atto a
0.000,000,000,000,000,000,001 = 10-21 zepto z
0.000,000,000,000,000,000,000,001 = 10-24 yocto y

Sayfa 9
Sayfa 10
 Example

Sayfa 11
Example
 1-Decompose 1 Farad into Fundamental Units

 2- Look up the viscosity of the Mobil 1 5W-30 motor oil

at 40° C in centiStokes and express it in SI units. Use
Mobil Oil’s web page.

Sayfa 12
Experiment (deney)
In general, experiments are performed

 to test a theory

 to compare with other independent experiments

measuring the same quantity.

Sayfa 13
Measurement (ölçme)
Measurement is the assignment of numbers to
objects or events.

All measurements consist of three parts:

 magnitude,
 dimensions (units) and
 Uncertainty

For example speed of light:

Sayfa 14
Measurement in practice
People make measurements for many reasons:

•to make sure an item will fit

•to determine the correct price to pay for something, or

•to check that a manufactured item is within specification.

In all cases, a measurement is only useful if it is suitable

for the intended purpose.

Sayfa 15
Measurement Quality

 Do you know how accurate your measurement result is?

 Is this accurate enough?
 How strongly do you trust the result?

These questions relate to the quality of a measurement.

When talking about measurement quality, it is important to

understand the following concepts:

Sayfa 16
Error & Uncertainty
Error (=hata)

 is the difference between the measured value and

the true value of the thing being measured.

 In general, the true value is the value that would be obtained

by a theoretically perfect measurement.

Sayfa 17
Suppose we are asked to measure the length of a block of
glass. Our experimental error depends on the method of
measurement.

Method Typical error

------------------- -------------
Cheap ruler 0.5 mm
Calipers 0.05 mm
Travelling microscope 0.005 mm
Interferometer 0.00001 mm

Sayfa 18
Uncertainty (=belirsizlik)

is the quantification of the doubt about the measurement

result and tells us something about its quality

Since there is always a margin of doubt about any

measurement,

Thus, we need to know two concepts in order to quantify

an uncertainty.

Sayfa 19
One is the width of the margin, or interval.

The other is a confidence level, and states how sure we are

that the ‘true value’ is within that margin.

For example: We might say that the length of a certain stick

measures 20 centimetres plus or minus 1 centimetre, This
result could be written:

20 cm ±1 cm, at a level of confidence of 95%.

The statement says that we are 95 percent sure that the stick
is between 19 centimetres and 21 centimetres long.

Sayfa 20
Example
We measure two glass blocks to be 19.0 mm and 19.5 mm
long. Are they really different?

Answer
if we used a cheap ruler
19.0  0.5 mm and
we have no reason to believe so.

if we used a caliper
19.00  0.05 mm and 19.50  0.05 mm
they certainly are different!

Sayfa 21
Tolerance
 is the maximum acceptable difference between the
measured value and actual or specified value for being
measured things.
For example, if an electrical resistor has a specification of 10
ohms and there is a tolerance of +/- 10 % on that
specification, the minimum acceptable resistance would be 9
ohms and the maximum would be 11 ohms.

Sayfa 22
Percentage Error
Percentage Error measures the accuracy of a measurement by
the difference between a measured or experimental value and
a true or accepted value A.

Percentage error is calculated by:

| E  A|
PE   100 %
A

Sayfa 23
Percentage Difference
Percentage Difference measures precision of two
measurements by the difference between the measured or
experimental values E1 and E2 expressed as a fraction the
average of the two values.

Hence the percent difference is defined by:

| E1  E2 |
PD  100 %
( E1  E2 ) / 2

Sayfa 24
Sources of Errors
There are two fundamentally different types of
experimental error.

 Statistical (or Random) errors

 Systematic errors

Sayfa 25
Statistical errors are random in nature.
Repeated measurements will differ from each other
and from the true value by amounts which are not
individually predictable, although the average
behaviour over many repetitions can be predicted.

 Scale reading errors belong to this class:

if we get 50 people to measure our glass block, we expect to
get a range of (slightly) different values.

Statistical errors may be reduced by

repeating the same experiment many times
Sayfa 26
Example
Suppose we have a box containing 800 black marbles and 200
white ones, and we attempt to deduce its contents by taking a
random sample of 10 marbles. What is the average value of
getting blacks and whites?

Answer
An individual sample could easily be 7 black and 3 white,
or 9:1, or 10:0, or even 0:10, and it is not possible to predict
this. However, it is possible to say that the average
of many samples will be 8 black and 2 white.

Sayfa 27
 Experiment Black White

1 9 1
2 9 1
Here is a sample 3 10 0
obtained from 4 8 2
15 experiments: 5 8 2
6 8 2
7 7 3
8 8 2
9 7 3
10 7 3
11 8 2
12 5 5
13 9 1
14 8 2
15 8 2
------------------------
sum 119 31
mean 7.93 2.07 Sayfa 28
Systematic errors arise from problems in the design of
the experiment.

They are not random, and affect all measurements in

some well-defined way.

Sometimes, it is not easy to predict the

systematical errors.

The systematic errors may be reduced by

calibration of the device.
Sayfa 29
Example 4
Suppose a watch has only hour and
minute hands, but no second hand.
What is the time?

When you try to estimate the time,

you will have random error of
maximum one minute.

If the watch is running slow so that it is wrong by an amount

that you are not aware of (say 10 min),
the reading will have a 10 min the systematic error too.

Sayfa 30
Measurement Errors for Some Devices
(Instrumental Limitations)

 The values of experimental measurements have

uncertainties due to measurement limitations.

Sayfa 31
Ruler
In Fig, the pointer indicates a value between 23 and 24 mm.
With this millimeter scale one strategy is to take the center of
the bin as the estimate of the value, the maximum error is then
half the width of the bin. So in this case our measurement is
23.5  0.5 mm
The value of 0.5 mm is the estimate of the random error.

Sayfa 32
Digital Measuring Devices
All digital measuring devices has a maximum uncertainty of the
order of half its last digit. For example, in Fig, for the reading
from a digital voltmeter, the uncertainty is  0.01/2 Volts.

Thus, assuming the voltmeter is

calibrated accurately,
the measured voltage is

Sayfa 33
35.5  0.5 mm

10.75  0.25 m/s

71  1 o C

Sayfa 34
Accuracy & Precision
Accuracy (=doğruluk)
The accuracy indicates proximity of measurement results
to the true (actual) value.

Precision (=kesinlik)
The precision is the repeatability or reproducibility of the
measurement

A measurement system can be accurate but not precise, precise but not accurate. This can be
represented by an analogy to the grouping of arrows in a target.

Sayfa 35
A target analogy for the comparison of accuracy and precision.

Sayfa 36
Sayfa 37
Repeatability
is the closeness of agreement between repeated
measurements of the same thing, carried out in the same
place, by the same person, on the same equipment, in the
same way, at similar times

If you measure a screw three times in one minute using

the same micrometer,
you would expect to get a similar answer each time.
Repeatability describes the agreement within sets of
measurements where the same person uses the same
equipment in, the same way, under the same conditions.

Sayfa 38
Reproducibility

is the closeness of agreement between measurements of

the same thing carried out in different circumstances, e.g.
by a different person, or a different method, or at a
different time
But, if your colleagues each had a go at measuring the
same screw on different days using different measuring
tools, a wider range of answers would be much less
surprising. This is known as 'reproducibility' and describes
the agreement within a set of measurements where
different people, equipment, methods, locations or
conditions are involved.

Sayfa 39
Measurement System

Components of a general measurement system

Sayfa 40
Sensor is a physical element that employs some
natural phenomenon by which it senses the variable being
measured.
Transducer converts this sensed information into a detectable
signal, which might be electrical, mechanical, optical, or
otherwise. The goal is to convert the sensed information into
a form that can be easily quantified.
Signal conditioning equipment takes the transducer signal
and modifies it to a desired magnitude.
Output stage indicates or records the value measured.
Feed back control stage, contains a controller that interprets
the measured signal and makes a decision regarding the
control of the process.
Calibration applies a known input value to a measurement
system for the purpose of observing the system output
value.
Sayfa 41
Calibration
Calibration is a comparison between measurements
(best and unknown).

The device with the known or assigned correctness

is called the standard.

The second device is the unit under test

is called the test instrument.

Sayfa 42
Test Device The Standard

Sayfa 43
Questions
1. What is a random error? Give an example for it.
2. What is a systematic error? Give an example for it.
3. How can we reduce random and systematic errors in an
experiment?
4. How does the limited accuracy of the measuring apparatus
result in a random error?
5. How do uncontrolled changes in the environment result in a
systematic error?
6. What is the difference between error and uncertainty?
7. What is meant by accuracy and precision?
8. Why instrument calibration is necessary?
9. What is the difference between percentage error and
percentage difference?
Sayfa 44
10. Two measurements of body temperature before and after a
drug is administered: 37.2 oC and 37.8 oC. Is temperature rise
significant for errors (a) 0.01 oC and (b) 0.5 oC.

11. For a measurement of gravitational acceleration

g = 9.811 m/s2, calculate the percentage error with respect to
best measured value (having very small uncertainty) of
9.80665 m/s2.

12. Two measurement of gravitational acceleration are given by:

and
g1  9.77  0.14 m/s 2 g 2  9.82  0.10 m/s 2
(a) Which one is the better measurement?
(b) Calculate the percentage difference between the
measurements.

Sayfa 45
13. What is the value of reading given below?
(a) 28.5 +- 0.5 mm
(b) 28.0 +- 0.5 mm
(c) 29.0 +- 0.5 mm
(d) 27.5 +- 0.5 mm

14. What is the value of reading given below?

(a) 12.58 +- 0.05 g
(b) 12.58 +- 0.01 g
(c) 12.580 +- 0.005 g
(d) 12.580 +- 0.010 g

Sayfa 46
16. What is the value of reading given below?

Sayfa 47