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What is Electrical Power?

What is Electrical Power?

Since we often use electricity to convey energy from one location to another, it is important to be able to…


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Electrical Sensors: Potential Transformers (PTs) and Current Transformers (CTs)

Electrical Sensors: Potential Transformers (PTs) and Current Transformers (CTs)

The two “process variables” we rely on most heavily in the field of electrical measurement and…


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Transformer Basics and Principles of Operation

Transformer Basics and Principles of Operation

The transformer is one of the most important components in all of AC circuitry. Principally used to…


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Introduction to Power System Automation

Introduction to Power System Automation

Those familiar with industrial instrumentation will find much within the electric power industry remarkably…


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Single-line Electrical Diagrams

Single-line Electrical Diagrams

Electrical power grids primarily consist of three-phase AC circuits. This means most power lines (transmission…


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Differential (87) Current Protection

Differential (87) Current Protection

One of the fundamental laws of electric circuits is Kirchhoff’s Current Law, which states the algebraic…


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Polyphase AC Power

Polyphase AC Power

“Polyphase” means “many phases,” describing a form of AC electrical system where…


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Distance (21) Protection

Distance (21) Protection

A form of protection against faults on long-distance power lines is called distance relaying, so named because…


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Directional Overcurrent (67) Protection

Directional Overcurrent (67) Protection

While 50 and 51 (instantaneous and time overcurrent) relay functions monitor line current magnitude and guard…


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Circuit Breakers and Disconnects

Circuit Breakers and Disconnects

Disconnect Switches Disconnects are switches designed to isolate sections of a power system in case of damage…


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Introduction to Protective Relaying

Introduction to Protective Relaying

Circuit breakers used in residential, commercial, and light industrial service are self-tripping devices: they…


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Understanding Electrical Power Grids

Understanding Electrical Power Grids

The term “grid” refers to the conductors and equipment interconnecting power sources to power…


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Electrical Sources and Electronic Load

Electrical Sources and Electronic Load

By definition, a source is a device delivering energy into a system, while a load is a device extracting…


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Basics of Electrical Current

Basics of Electrical Current

Current is the name we give to the motion of electric charges from a point of high potential to a point of low…


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ANSI/IEEE Function Number Codes

ANSI/IEEE Function Number Codes

In the United States, the ANSI and IEEE organizations have standardized a set of numerical codes referring to…


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Phasor Analysis of Transformer Circuits

Phasor Analysis of Transformer Circuits

Three-phase AC is the dominant mode of electric power generation and distribution in modern societies.…


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DC Motor Speed Control

DC Motor Speed Control

DC electric motors generate torque by a reaction between two magnetic fields: one field established by…


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Examples of PLC Systems

Examples of PLC Systems

Programmable logic controllers are essentially nothing more than special-purpose, industrial computers. As…


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Pressure Switches

Pressure Switches

A pressure switch is one that detects the presence of fluid pressure. Pressure switches often use diaphragms…


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Proportional-only Offset

Proportional-only Offset

A fundamental limitation of proportional control has to do with its response to changes in setpoint and…


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Ladder Diagram (LD) Structure Commands

Ladder Diagram (LD) Structure Commands

The simple PLC ladder diagram (LD) commands consist of contacts and coils, arranged in sequences that mimic…


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P, I, and D Responses Graphed

P, I, and D Responses Graphed

Visualizing the actions of P, I, and D tuning parameters using graphs is extremely useful in predicting the…


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Fiber Optic Data Communication

Fiber Optic Data Communication

Light has long been used as a long-range signaling medium. While communication by light through open air is…


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Sliding-stem Valves

Sliding-stem Valves

A sliding-stem valve body is one where the moving parts slide with a linear motion. Some examples of…


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Control Valve Sizing

Control Valve Sizing

When control valves operate between fully open and fully shut, they serve much the same purpose in process…


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Vibration Monitoring Hardware

Vibration Monitoring Hardware

The following photograph shows a large air blower in a wastewater treatment facility equipped with a…


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Split-Range Control

Split-Range Control

There are many process control applications in the industry where it is desirable to have multiple control…


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Circuit Failure Analysis

Circuit Failure Analysis

Perhaps the most valuable skill an instrument technician can possess is the ability to efficiently diagnose…


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Thermocouple Types, Junctions, Connector and Tip Styles

Thermocouple Types, Junctions, Connector and Tip Styles

RTDs are completely passive sensing elements, requiring the application of an externally-sourced electric…


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Valve Positioners

Valve Positioners

The reason why a pneumatic control valve’s stem position corresponds linearly to the amount of air…


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Control Valve Characterization

Control Valve Characterization

Control valves are supposed to deliver reliable, repeatable control of process fluid flow rate over a wide…


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The Concept of Integration

The Concept of Integration

Suppose we wished to measure the consumption of propane over time for a large propane storage tank supplying a…


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Proportional-only Control

Proportional-only Control

Imagine a liquid-level control system for a vessel, where the position of a level-sensing float directly sets…


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Digital PID Controllers

Digital PID Controllers

The vast majority of PID controllers in service today are digital in nature. Microprocessors executing PID…


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Common Educational Fallacies

Common Educational Fallacies

When I began teaching full-time in 1998, most of what I thought I understood about good teaching was actually…


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Sequential Function Chart (SFC) Programming

Sequential Function Chart (SFC) Programming

(Will be addressed in future versions of this book)


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Flow Measurement in Open Channels

Flow Measurement in Open Channels

Measuring the flow rate of liquid through an open channel is not unlike measuring the flow rate of a liquid…


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True Mass Flowmeters

True Mass Flowmeters

Many traditional flowmeter technologies respond to the volumetric flow rate of the moving fluid.…


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Ethernet networks: Repeaters, Cabling and Switching Hubs

Ethernet networks: Repeaters, Cabling and Switching Hubs

An engineer named Bob Metcalfe conceived the idea of Ethernet in 1973, while working for the Xerox research…


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Practical Topic Coverage

Practical Topic Coverage

Nearly every technical course teaches and tests students on definitions, basic concepts, and at least some…


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Vibration Sensors

Vibration Sensors

Sensors used to measure vibration come in three basic types: displacement, velocity, and acceleration.…


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Legal Code

Legal Code

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License By exercising the Licensed Rights (defined…


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Error Corrections

Error Corrections

Abdelaziz, Ahmed (June 2014) Identified numerous typographical errors throughout the book, mostly repeated…


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Level Switches

Level Switches

A level switch is one detecting the level of liquid or solid (granules or powder) in a vessel. Level switches…


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Examples of PLC Systems

Examples of PLC Systems

Programmable logic controllers are essentially nothing more than special-purpose, industrial computers. As…


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Electromagnetism Basics

Electromagnetism Basics

The fundamental principle of electromagnetism is that an electric current will create a magnetic field at…


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Sequential Function Chart (SFC) Programming

Sequential Function Chart (SFC) Programming

(Will be addressed in future versions of this book)


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Dampers and Louvres

Dampers and Louvres

A damper (otherwise known as a louvre) is a multi-element flow control device generally used to throttle large…


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The HART Digital/Analog Hybrid Standard

The HART Digital/Analog Hybrid Standard

A technological advance introduced in the late 1980’s was HART, an acronym standing for Highway…


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Insertion Flowmeters

Insertion Flowmeters

This section does not describe a particular type of flowmeter, but rather a design that may be implemented for…


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Supervisory Control

Supervisory Control

In a manually-controlled process, a human operator directly actuates some form of final control element…


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Principles, not Procedures

Principles, not Procedures

One of the marks of a successful problem-solver is a habit of applying general principles to every new problem…


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Safety Gas Analyzers

Safety Gas Analyzers

Process analyzers measure the concentration of specific substances for the purpose of measuring and/or…


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Ratio Control

Ratio Control

Most people reading this book have likely had the experience of adjusting water temperature using two hand…


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Numerical Integration

Numerical Integration

As we have seen, the concept of integration is finding the accumulation of one variable multiplied by another…


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Ladder Diagram (LD) Structure Commands

Ladder Diagram (LD) Structure Commands

The simple PLC ladder diagram (LD) commands consist of contacts and coils, arranged in sequences that mimic…


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Comparison of  Op-Amp Circuits With Analogous Pneumatic Mechanisms

Comparison of Op-Amp Circuits With Analogous Pneumatic Mechanisms

Self-balancing pneumatic instrument mechanisms are very similar to negative-feedback operational amplifier…


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