In reliability engineering, it is important to be able to quantity the…
Phasors are to AC circuit quantities as polarity is to DC circuit…
A powerful mathematical concept useful for analyzing practically any…
The vast majority of modern process transmitters (both analog and…
RTDs are completely passive sensing elements, requiring the…
Although analog electronic process controllers are considered a newer…
A whole class of problem-solving techniques focuses on altering the…
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License By…
An extremely important topic in engineering is that of transfer…
In some process applications, it is important that the control valve…
Capacitive level instruments measure electrical capacitance of a…
For better or worse, there are no fewer than three different forms of…
An interesting parallel to the “unity fraction” unit…
A technological advance introduced in the late 1980’s was HART,…
A limit switch detects the physical motion of an object by direct…
An electric motor is often used as a discrete control element in a…
Two extremely important principles in electric circuits were codified…
This section shows some of the many instrument symbols found in…
The final element of PID control is the “D” term, which…
(Will be addressed in future versions of this book)
Circuit breakers are the “final control elements” of the…
Perhaps the most basic and necessary protective relay function is…
A chemical reaction resulting in a net release of energy is called…
Several different technologies exist for the conversion of fluid…
Once while working as an instrument technician in an aluminum foundry,…
Volumes could be written about poor diagnostic technique. The…
Stoichiometry is the accounting of atoms before and after a chemical…
When control valves operate between fully open and fully shut, they…
Few areas of mathematics are as powerfully useful in describing and…
The following animation shows a rotating phasor in three-dimensional…
While the term “probability” may evoke images of…
Most pneumatic instruments use a simple but highly sensitive mechanism…
There are many process control applications in the industry where it…
This animation shows the basic operation of a gas chromatograph,…
Valve actuators provide force to move control valve trim. For precise…
The disadvantages of pneumatic instruments are painfully evident to…
An electric motor is often used as a discrete control element in a…
As described earlier in this chapter, calibration refers to the…
Solids tend to expand when heated. The amount that a solid sample will…
Programmable logic controllers are essentially nothing more than…
The purpose of calibration is to ensure the input and output of an…
Hydrogen ion activity in aqueous (water-solvent) solutions is a very…
The following animation shows how a radio-energy pulse travels down…
A laser is a light source emitting waves of light that not only…
A temperature switch is one detecting the temperature of some…
Binary patterns are not just able to represent numerical values. Given…
PID control can be a confusing concept to understand. Here, a brief…
The term “grid” refers to the conductors and equipment…
Perhaps the most important rule of controller tuning is to know the…
